


































































330y 


/ 




/ 








LAUREL-CROWNED TALES. 


— t — 

UNIFORM IN STYLE AND PRICE. 
- 0 - 


I. 

Abdallah: or, The Four-Leaved Shamrock. Translated 

from the French of Edouard Ren6 Lefebvre-Laboulaye, 
by Mary L. Booth. i6mo, 232 pages, gilt top. 

II. 

Rasselas: Prince of Abyssinia. By Samuel Johnson. 
i6mo, 201 pages, gilt top. 

III. 

Raphael: or, Pages of the Book of Life at Twenty. 

From the French of Alphonse de Lamartine. i6mo, 
248 pages, gilt top. 

IV. 

The Vicar of Wakefield. By Oliver Goldsmith. i6nio, 
279 pages, gilt top. 

V. 

The Epicurean: A Tale. By Thomas Moore, i6mo, 238 
pages, gilt top. 

VI. 

Picciola. From the French of X. B. Saintine, i6nio, 278 
pages, gilt top. 

VII. 

An Iceland Fisherman. Translated from the French of 
Pierre Loti, by Anna Farwell de Koven. i6mo, 252 
pages, gilt top. 

VIII. 

Paul and Virginia. Translated from the French of Bernar- 
din de Saint-Pierre, by Melville B. Anderson. 
i6mo, 218 pages, gilt top. 





<lr 


■ !■ , 


AN 


Iceland Fisherman 


BY 

PIERRE LOTI 

* 


^Translate*! from tlje jfrcncfj 
By ANNA FARWELL de KOVEN 



CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
1899 





By A. C. McClurg and Co, 


A.D. 1S89 


<s> Z 7. 9 

' C>> 





TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE. 


/ T'HE difficulties of translation are always great, 
**• but never greater than when the task is the 
reproducing of an emotion which arises from the 
melody of language rather than from originality of 
plot or rapid development of incident. But to 
translate Pierre Loti is no more difficult than to 
analyze him. He is as yet an unclassified ele¬ 
ment in literature. The intelligence which admits 
his limitations in invention and in regularity of 
expression cannot define or explain away the in¬ 
vincible sorcery which enthralls the emotions. His 
nature is a rendezvous of contradictions. He is 
very old and he is very young; he is as sensitive as 
a child and as unbelieving as an atheist; he adores 
alike the lily of the tropics and the garden-flower 
of his own home. He has the strength of the de¬ 
veloped artist and the irregularity of the amateur. 
He has experienced and described the extremes 
of human emotion. But he has two qualities 



VI 


TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 


which remain invariable, — a yearning passion for 
beauty, and a limpid purity of style. He is as 
brilliant and realistic an impressionist as any of 
his countrymen; but he is more than all a senti¬ 
mentalist, and never describes a scene without 
the accompanying emotion which unites it to 
his soul and ours. The poet’s passion for beauty 
is his own; but his expression of it is essentially 
Gallic, as it is never divested of the personal rela¬ 
tion to himself. An abstract rapture over the 
frozen beauties of a Greek vase could never have 
arisen from the heart of this fascinating egotist. 
Like all poets, his nature is as deep as a well and 
as reflective as the mirror of its surface. 

The principle of moral choice does not limit 
the number of images which he reflects, and we 
are to be congratulated that the roving, seafaring 
life he leads gives him manifold opportunities to 
gratify his curiosity and ours. In “ Le Mariage 
de Loti,” the first of his books, and in “ Pecheur 
d’lslande,” his masterpiece, he strikes the ex¬ 
treme notes of his emotional experience and artis¬ 
tic sympathy. In the former — a description of 
a summer’s sojourn in the Islands of Polynesia — 
his love for the strange and exotic finds its most 
remarkable utterance. To be told that there are 
people who under happy conditions of climate 
can live in the mere luxurious abandonment to 
the beauty of Nature in her most magnificent 
moods, is something; but to be made to see and 
live with them as this young Alfred de Musset 


TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 


Vll 


did, gives us as strange and intense a sensation of 
remote and almost unimaginable beauty as it is 
possible to obtain. There are some songs in this 
book, — love songs and letters from its strange 
and pitiful barbaric heroine, — which are as full of 
metaphor as the Song of Solomon, and as fresh 
from the heart of Nature as the gypsy music of 
Hungary. 

In “ Pecheur d’lslande ” he tells the simple 
love story of an Iceland fisherman, and strikes 
down to the primal roots of human pathos with 
the old, old tragedy of love and death. His sym¬ 
pathy for the hardships and dangers of this fisher- 
folk of his own home, described with the unerring 
familiarity of old acquaintance, appeals to all pure 
and tender emotions, and proves the inherent no¬ 
bility of his nature. All the beautiful qualities of 
his heart and brain have flowered in this work. 
It may be doubted if any living writer of the 
French language combines it with such indescrib¬ 
able melody as does Pierre Loti; and nowhere 
are its fascinating delicacies, its exquisite reserves 
of sound, and its sensuous and generous vocables 
more harmoniously fortunate than when he de¬ 
scribes the mysterious splendors of the Iceland 
skies, and the remote and solemn silences of its 
treacherous icy seas. The realism of this con¬ 
summate performance is so consistent and so great 
that the memory of its word-pictures confounds 
itself in the mind with that of Jules Breton’s heroic 
peasants, and leaves in the heart the lesson of a 


Vlll 


TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 


deep and large humanity. As he is artist in his 
word-visions, he is melodist in his word-tones. 
When Nature rolls a Breton and a Schubert into 
one, endows him with an invincible and indescrib¬ 
able personal fascination, sets him free to wander 
over the face of the earth and the sea, and then 
gives him a voice, it is worth while to listen to 
what he has to say. It has been the translator’s 
earnest wish to convey to a yet larger number 
Pierre Loti’s most perfect utterance of the ro¬ 
mance of pure humanity in the English transla¬ 
tion of “ Pecheur d’Islande.” 


A. F. de K. 








AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


PART I. 

CHAPTER I. 

were huge, rough-looking fellows, 
five of them, as they sat there 
iking, with their elbows on the 
le, in a dingy, stuffy little den 
which smelt of brine and of the sea. The place 
was too low for them, and narrowed down at one 
end like the inside of a great hollow sea-mew, 
and with a monotonous, creaking sound, seemed 
to be rocking gently and drowsily to and fro. 

From within no one could have told that out¬ 
side lay night and the sea, for the single opening 
in the roof was closed by a wooden hatch-cover, 
while an old lamp which hung swinging to and 
fro lit up the place. 













IO 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


There was a fire in the stove, and the steam 
which rose from their damp clothing, as it dried, 
mingled with the smoke of their clay pipes. 

A heavy table took up nearly the whole cabin, 
to which it was carefully proportioned, leaving 
barely room enough for them to get around it, in 
order to seat themselves on the narrow chests 
screwed to the oaken walls. Great beams crossed 
the ceiling above them, which nearly touched their 
heads; and behind their backs were bunks which 
seemed hollowed out of the thickness of the wood, 
and looked like niches in a cave for the dead. 
The clumsy woodwork was worm-eaten, impreg¬ 
nated with damp and salt, and worn and polished 
by the rubbing of their hands. 

They had been drinking wine and cider from 
their mugs, and their frank, open faces expressed 
contentment with life. Now, still seated at the 
table, they were chatting, Breton fashion, over 
the questions of love and marriage. 

Against a bulkhead at one end of the cabin, 
mounted on a bracket, a Holy Virgin in faience 
held the place oft. honor. She was somewhat 
ancient, this patroness of the sailors, and crudely 
painted. But china people last longer than real 
ones; and her dress of red and blue still made 
a very fresh little bit of color among the dull 
grays of the poor wooden cabin. She must have 
heard many an ardent prayer in hours of dan¬ 
ger; and some one had nailed at her feet two 
bouquets of artificial flowers and a rosary. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


II 


The five men were dressed alike in thick blue 
woollen jerseys which covered their bodies and 
were tucked into the waist-bands of their trou¬ 
sers ; on their heads was a kind of tarpaulin hat, 
called “ sou’wester ” from the name of that south¬ 
west wind which in our part of the world always 
brings rain. They were of different ages. The 
captain might have been forty; three others ranged 
from twenty-five to thirty; while the last, whom 
they called Sylvestre or Lurlu, was only seventeen. 
He was already a man in strength and size, and 
a very thick and curly black beard covered his 
cheeks; but his eyes, bluish gray and extremely 
sweet and innocent in expression, were still those 
of a child. 

' Gh at up in their dismal den, and crowded close 
together for lack of room, they seemed neverthe¬ 
less to be quite happy and content; and outside 
was night and the sea, and the wide desolation 
of dark and fathomless waters. A copper clock 
fastened against the wall marked eleven o ’clock, 
— eleven in the evening, of course, — and on the 
wooden roof above could be heard the sound 
of the falling rain. They were talking together 
very gayly over this subject of marriage, but with¬ 
out saying anything vulgar or in any way improper. 
No; they were discussing only the love affairs of 
those who were still unmarried, or were probably 
telling amusing adventures which had occurred 
during their sprees on shore. Sometimes, indeed, 
with a hearty laugh they let fly some allusion to 


12 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


the pleasures of courting; but love among weather¬ 
beaten sailors like these is always wholesome, and 
remains pure on account of its very simplicity. 

But Sylvestre meantime was restless over the 
absence of another sailor whom they called Jean, 
— a name which the Bretons pronounce “ Yann.” 

Where indeed was Yann? Was he always at 
work on deck? Why did he not come down and 
take his part in the feast? 

“ Well,” said the captain, “ it’s nearly mid¬ 
night.” 

And getting up, he lifted the wooden hatch- 
cover with his head and called out from there 
to Yann, while a strange light fell in from above. 

“ Yann, Yann ! ” and “ Hello ! you there ! ” 

Some one answered roughly from without. 

This pale, pale light that came through while 
the hatchway was opened for an instant was very 
much like that of day. “ Nearly midnight.” 
Nevertheless it was like a ray of sunlight, — a de¬ 
parting twilight ray sent from afar across myste¬ 
rious mirrors. 

When the hole was shut, night came once more, 
the little hanging lamp began to burn yellow again, 
and Yann could be heard clattering down the 
wooden ladder in his clumsy sabots. As he came 
in, he was obliged to bend himself nearly double 
like a great bear, for he was almost a giant; and 
the first thing he did was to make up a face, 
holding his nose on account of the penetrating 
odor of the brine. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 13 

If anything he was a little too much above 
the ordinary height, and seemed more so, as he 
carried himself as straight as a ramrod. As he 
turned toward them at the foot of the ladder, the 
muscles of his shoulders could be seen standing 
out in great knots under his blue jersey. He 
had very expressive, large brown eyes with a 
look in them which was fiery and untamed. 

Sylvestre, putting his arm around this Yann, 
drew him affectionately toward him like a child. 
He was betrothed to Yann’s sister, and treated 
him like an elder brother; and Yann, like a 
good-natured lion, permitted himself to be ca¬ 
ressed, smiling and showing his white teeth in 
reply. His teeth, having more room than is 
usually the case, seemed a little far apart and 
quite small. His blond mustache was quite 
shorty although he never shaved it, and curled 
very closely in two symmetrical little waves over 
his lips, which were exquisitely beautiful in shape, 
and then burst into two little tufts on either side 
of the deep corners of his mouth. The rest of 
his face was smoothly shaved, and his cheeks were 
as rosy and as fresh as unpicked fruit. 

They filled up their glasses again when Yann 
sat down, and called the cabin-boy to put fresh 
tobacco in their pipes and relight them. This 
gave the boy a chance to take a sly whiff him¬ 
self. He was a strong young lad, with a round 
face, a sort of cousin to all the crew, who were 
all more or less related; and except that his 


14 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

work was hard enough, he was the spoiled child of 
the ship. 

Yann made him drink a little out of his glass 
and then they sent him to bed. After this they 
took up again the great subject of marriage. 

“ And you, Yann,” asked Sylvestre, “ when are 
you going to get married? ” 

“ Aren’t you ashamed,” said the captain, “ a 
great fellow like you — twenty-seven years old — 
and not married yet? What must the girls think 
when they see you? ” 

But Yann, shrugging his huge shoulders, care¬ 
lessly replied,— 

“ Oh, I’ll get married some day, but not till I 
feel like it.” 

He had just finished his five years of service to 
the State, this Yann, and it was during this time that 
as a gunner on board a man-of-war he had learned 
to speak French and to hold sceptical opinions. 

He now began to relate how for his last ad¬ 
venture he had been in love with a singer at a 
cafe chantant in Nantes. 

One evening, just after landing, when he was a 
little tipsy, he had gone into an alcazar. There 
was a woman at the door selling enormous bouquets 
at twenty francs apiece. Without thinking much 
what he was doing, he bought one and then threw 
it with a turn of his arm right in the face of the 
singer on the stage, — partly in admiration, and 
partly in scorn of the painted doll, whose cheeks 
he found by far too rosy. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 15 

It knocked the woman down, but she ended by 
adoring him for nearly three weeks. 

“ And see here,” he said, “ when I came away 
she gave me this gold watch.” 

And he threw it on the table for them to see, as 
if it were a trifle to be despised. 

This was related in language that while coarse 
enough, was original, and yet this vulgar epi¬ 
sode of civilized life sounded strangely out of 
place among these rude, simple men, amid the 
deep silences of the sea without, with this strange 
midnight radiance just visible above, telling of 
the dying summers of the North Pole. 

These ways of Yann were a pain and surprise 
to Sylvestre, who was a most innocent lad, brought 
up to respect the holy sacraments by an old grand¬ 
mother, — the widow of a fisherman of the village 
of Ploubazlanec. When he was quite little he used 
to go every day with her to tell his beads on his 
knees beside his mother’s grave; and from the 
cemetery, which was situated on a cliff, he could 
see in the distance the gray waters of the Channel, 
where his father had perished long ago in a ship¬ 
wreck. As they were poor, he and his grand¬ 
mother, he was compelled to turn fisherman when 
very young, and his childhood had been passed on 
the open sea. He always said his prayers every 
night, and his eyes still kept their expression of trust 
and candor. He was a handsome fellow too, and 
next to Yann, the best-built man on board. His 
gentle voice and childish intonations contrasted 


16 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

a little curiously with his tall figure and his black 
beard; and as he had grown up very quickly, he 
seemed almost embarrassed to find himself all at 
once so big and tall. He expected to marry 
Yann’s sister some day; but he never had re¬ 
sponded to the advances of any other girl. 

There were only three bunks in the ship for the 
crew, one for every two, and they slept in them by 
turns as their watches came round. 

When they had finished their feast celebrated 
in honor of the Assumption of the Virgin, their 
patroness, it was a little after midnight. Three 
of them turned into the little tomb-like niches to 
sleep; and the other three went up again on 
deck to renew the great work of fishing, which 
had been for a little while interrupted, — these 
were Yann, Sylvestre, and another man from their 
country called Guillaume. 

Outside it was daylight, continual daylight; but 
it was a pale, pale light, unlike any other, dif¬ 
fused over everything like reflected rays from a 
dead sun. About and around them was an im¬ 
mense and colorless void, and except for the ship 
itself, all seemed diaphanous, impalpable, mysteri¬ 
ous. The eye could scarcely discern that it was 
the sea. At first it seemed like a kind of trem¬ 
bling mirror in which no image was reflected, and 
as one looked longer it seemed to become a va¬ 
porous, moving plain, and nothing more; it was 
without horizon and without form. The damp 
freshness of the air was keener and more intense 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . I 7 

than real cold, and in breathing, tasted strongly of 
salt. The sea was calm, and the rain had ceased. 
The shapeless and colorless clouds above seemed to 
contain a hidden light which came from one knew 
not whence; one could see quite clearly while 
feeling yet the presence of the night; and every 
object was pale with an indefinable whiteness. 

The three men standing there had passed all 
their lives since childhood on these icy seas, in 
the midst of fantasies of sea and sky as vague 
and troubled as visions of the night. All this in¬ 
finite panorama of chaos they were accustomed to 
watch from their little wooden craft, and their 
eyes were used to the sight of it, like those of the 
great birds that fly over the open sea. 

The ship rocked slowly at anchor, giving out 
the same complaint, as monotonous as an old 
chanson of Brittany repeated in a dream by 
one asleep. 

Yann and Sylvestre had rapidly prepared their 
hooks and lines, while the other man opened a 
barrel of salt, sharpened his great knife, and sat 
down to wait behind them. It was not for long, 
for hardly had they cast their lines into the still 
and icy water when they hauled them up again 
heavy with great fish of a glittering gray, like steel. 
And still the cod took the bait, and the haul went 
on, rapid, incessant, and in silence. The other 
man cut them open with his great knife, flattened, 
salted, and counted them, while behind them, all 
fresh and dripping, the briny pile which was to 
2 



18 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

make their fortunes on their return grew larger 
and larger. 

The hours went by monotonously, and without, 
over the measureless, deserted plains of the sea, 
the light was slowly changing; and now it seemed 
a little less unreal. What had been a wan, pale 
twilight, like a summer evening at the North 
Pole, had now, with no intervening night, become 
an aurora, which all the glittering mirrors of the 
sea were reflecting in trembling rays of rose. 

“ You certainly ought to get married, Yann,” 
said Sylvestre, suddenly, with his eyes on the 
water, very seriously this time. He spoke as if 
he knew very well of some one in Brittany who 
had lost her heart to those great brown eyes of 
his brother; but he feared to broach lightly so 
serious a subject. 

“ I, yes, one of these days I will get mar¬ 
ried,” said Yann, with his disdainful smile, while 
his eyes flashed ; “ but not to any of those country 
girls. No ! as for me, I shall marry the sea, and 
I invite you all, everybody on board, to the ball 
I shall give.” 

They went on fishing, for they had no time to 
waste in talking; they were in the midst of an 
immense travelling shoal of fish, which had been 
two days passing, and they were not out of it yet. 
They had all stayed up the night before, and had 
caught in thirty hours more than a thousand 
enormous cod, until their strong arms were weary 
and they had almost fallen asleep. Sometimes 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 19 

their bodies only kept awake and went on fishing 
mechanically, while for a moment their minds 
floated off to sleep. But this ocean air they were 
breathing was as pure as in the first days of the 
world, and so invigorating that their lungs ex¬ 
panded and their cheeks grew rosy in spite of 
their fatigue. 

The morning light, the real light, had finally 
come, and as in Genesis, it was “ divided from 
the darkness,” which seemed to be heaped up 
over the horizon and to rest there heavily in 
shadowy masses; and now that one could see so 
clearly one could easily tell that night had been 
left behind and that that former radiance had 
been as strange and vague as the light of a 
dream. 

Here and there in the thick and overhanging 
sky there were rents like windows in a dome, 
through which great shafts of golden, rosy light 
shot down. 

The lower clouds lay in a band of deep shadow 
all about the horizon, infolding the; dcean dis¬ 
tances in dim obscurity, producing the illusion of 
an enclosed space; they were like curtains drawn 
over the infinite, like veils let down to conceal 
mysteries too gigantic for the imagination of men. 
This morning, around the little craft which was 
carrying Yann and Sylvestre, the changing world 
had taken on the look of a vast cloister, — a 
sanctuary, where the rays of light which came 
through the rifts in the temple’s dome fell in long 


20 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


reflected rays upon the motionless water, as on a 
pavement of marble. And then, little by little, in 
the growing light another vision appeared from 
afar, — a towering promontory of gloomy Iceland 
cut out like a rosy cameo against the dull gray 
sky. 

Yann’s marriage with the sea, — Sylvestre kept 
thinking of it while he went on fishing, not daring 
to say another word. He was sorry to hear the 
sacrament of marriage turned to a jest by his big 
brother; then, too, it had frightened him, — for 
he was superstitious. 

He had been thinking so long over this mar¬ 
riage of Yann, and he had dreamed that it might 
be with Gaud M£vel, a blond girl of Paimpol, and 
that he might have the joy of dancing at the feast 
before he left for his service to the State, — that five 
years’ exile, from which he might never return, 
and the knowledge of whose inevitable approach 
was already beginning to weigh upon his heart. 

Four o’clock in the morning. The three 
others, who had been sleeping below, came up 
together to relieve them. Still half asleep, and 
taking in deep breaths of the cold air, they 
climbed up, pulling on their long boots on the 
way, and half shutting their eyes, which were daz¬ 
zled by the million reflected rays of the white 
morning light. 

Then Yann and Sylvestre made a rapid break¬ 
fast of biscuits, breaking them with a mallet and 
munching them with a great deal of noise, laugh- 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


21 


ing at finding them so hard. They had become 
quite gay again at the prospect of going down to 
sleep and getting warm in their bunks; and with 
their arms around each other they danced away 
toward the hatchway to the air of an old song. 

But before they disappeared down the hole 
they stopped to play with a certain “ Turk,” — the 
ship’s dog, a young Newfoundland, who still had 
the sprawling awkward paws of a puppy. They 
poked at him and teased him, while he snapped 
at their hands like a wolf, and finally ended in 
hurting them. Then Yann, with a flash of anger 
in his changeable eyes, gave him a blow which 
knocked him over and made him howl. 

Yann had a good heart, but when his passions 
were aroused, a pleasant caress with him was 
something very near to brutal violence. 


CHAPTER II. 

Their boat was called the “ Marie,” Captain 
Guermeur; and every year when the great season 
of cod-fishing came round, she set sail for those 
dangerous icy regions whose summers know no 
nights. 

She was very old, like her patroness, the china 
Virgin. Her thick sides, with their timbers of 
oak, were seamed, rough, and impregnated with 
brine and dampness, but stout and whole withal, 



22 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


and exhaling the refreshing odor of pitch. When 
lying to, she had a heavy look, with her massive 
build; but when the great west winds began to 
blow she regained her strength and lightness like 
a sea-mew, whom the wind awakes. And then 
she had a way of breasting the waves and bound¬ 
ing over them more lightly than many a younger 
ship designed with all modern improvements in 
shape and build. 

As for the crew, the six men and the cabin- 
boy, they were “ Icelanders,” — a hardy race of 
sailors inhabiting principally the country of 
Paimpol and Tr6guier, and among whom the pro¬ 
fession of cod-fishing is handed down sacredly 
from father to son. 

They had hardly ever seen a summer in 
France. 

At the end of every winter, in the port of 
Paimpol, with the other fishermen they receive 
the benediction of departure. 

For this fete-day an altar, always in the same 
way, is built on the quay. It is made to imitate 
a rocky grotto, and in the midst, surrounded by 
trophies of anchors, nets, and oars, sits enthroned 
the Virgin, patroness of sailors, who has come out 
of her church for their sake. Sweet and impas¬ 
sive she sits, with the same lifeless eyes, which 
from generation to generation have seen depart¬ 
ing those happy ones for whom the season would 
prove fortunate, and the unhappy, destined never 
to return. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 23 

The Holy Sacrament, followed in slow proces¬ 
sion by wives and mothers, sisters and sweet¬ 
hearts, makes the tour of the harbor, where all 
the Iceland fishing-boats, drawn up ready to sail, 
dip their flags as it passes; and the priest, stop¬ 
ping before each one, says the prayers and makes 
the gestures which give the blessing. 

Then they depart Jike a fleet, leaving the coun¬ 
try nearly empty of husbands, lovers, and sons; 
and as they sail away the crews sing together in 
a loud and ringing chorus the hymns to “ Marie, 
Star of the Sea.” 

Every year there are the same ceremonials 
of departure, the same farewells. 

And then begins again the life on the open 
sea, the isolation but for three or four rough com¬ 
panions on the moving ship in the midst of the 
icy waters of the north sea. 

Just now they were returning, for the Virgin 
Star of the Sea had protected the ship which bore 
her name. 

The end of August was the time for their re¬ 
turn. But the “ Marie ” followed the custom 
of many of the Icelanders, which was to touch 
merely at Paimpol, and afterward to go down 
into the Gulf of Gascogne to find a good market 
for their fish, and to buy salt for the next cam¬ 
paign in the salt marshes of its low Sand Islands. 

In these southern ports, still warm with the 
sun, the hardy sailors scatter for a day or two, — 
eager for pleasure, and intoxicated by the remain- 


24 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


ing fragment of the summer, the touch of the 
earth, and the milder air. 

And then with the first frosts of autumn they 
return to their homes in Paimpol, or in the coun¬ 
try of Gaelo round about, to busy themselves with 
love affairs and family affairs, with marriages and 
births. Almost always they find little new-comers, 
whom their fathers have never seen, waiting for 
their return to be christened. They have need 
of many children, this race of fishermen, whom 
Iceland devours. 


CHAPTER III. 

At Paimpol, one beautiful Sunday evening in 
June, two women were very busy writing a letter. 

They were sitting before a large open window, 
on whose old and massive granite sill was ar¬ 
ranged a row of flower-pots. 

As they leaned over the table they both seemed 
to be young; one wore a very large head-dress 
after the fashion of long ago, and the other 
a very small one, of the new shape which the 
women of Paimpol had adopted, — two sweet¬ 
hearts, one would have said, concocting together 
a tender message to some handsome fisherman. 

The one who was dictating — she of the large 
cap — suddenly raised her head as if thinking of 
something to say, when, lo ! she was old, very 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


2 5 


old, in spite of her girlish figure seen thus from 
behind, under her little brown shawl; indeed 
quite old, — a good grandmother of at least sev¬ 
enty years, — but still pretty in a way, and fresh- 
looking, with the very ruddy cheeks such as some 
old people have a way of retaining. Her cap, 
coming low over the forehead and crown of her 
head, was composed of two or three large horns 
of muslin, which seemed to emerge one out of 
the other, falling finally over the nape of her 
neck. Her venerable face was admirably framed 
in all this whiteness and these rigid nunlike folds. 
Her eyes were very sweet in expression and full 
of honest goodness. She had not a trace of a 
tooth left, and when she smiled, the round bare 
gums which one saw instead were like a child’s. 

In spite of her chin, which had come to resem¬ 
ble, as she often said herself, “the point of a 
sabot,” her profile was by no means entirely 
spoiled by the years, and one could see still that 
it must have been as pure and regular as a 
Madonna’s. 

She was looking out of the window now, think¬ 
ing what more she could say to amuse her grand¬ 
son. 

Surely iri all the country of Paimpol there was 
not to be found so dear an old dame as she, or 
one who could find so much that was funny to 
say about one thing and another, or even about 
nothing at all. 

There were several impossible tales already in 


26 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


this letter, hut nothing unkind, for there was 
nothing unkind in her heart. 

The other, seeing she had nothing more to say, 
had begun to write carefully the address, — 

A Monsieur Moan, Sylvestre, 

On board the “Marie,” Captain Guermeur , 

in the Sea of Iceland, 7iear Reikiavik. 

Then she also lifted her head, and asked, — 

“ Is that all, Grandmother Moan? ” 

She was young, adorably young (about twenty, 
one would say), and very blond, which is rare 
among this brown race of Bretons, — very fair in¬ 
deed, with violet eyes and nearly black eyelashes. 
Her eyebrows, which were as blond as her hair, 
looked as if they had been retouched in the 
middle by a reddish line of a darker color, which 
gave an expression of will and force to her face. 
Her profile, although a little short, was very noble 
and beautiful, the nose, as in the Greek type, con¬ 
tinuing the line of the forehead with absolute cor¬ 
rectness. A very deep dent just under her lower 
lip accentuated its lines most deliciously, and 
from time to time, when she was much occupied 
with some thought, she would bite this lip with 
her white upper teeth, making it still more rosy. 
There was a certain air of pride and dignity about 
her slight figure, which came to her from her an¬ 
cestors, the brave Iceland sailors, and in her eyes 
was an expression both obstinate and sweet. 

Her cap was made in the shape of a shell, and 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


2 7 


came down very low over her forehead, binding 
it very closely, then, brought up quite high on 
either side, it showed two thick, long yellow locks 
rolled into little coils over her ears, — a very 
antique fashion of arranging the hair, which gives 
an old-time look to the women of Paimpol. 

One could easily see that she had been brought 
up in a different way from the poor old woman 
whom she called “ grandmother,” but who was 
in fact only a great-aunt who had met with mis¬ 
fortunes. 

She was the daughter of M. M£vel, an old Ice¬ 
lander, who was something of a pirate, and had 
grown rich through his dangerous traffic on the 
high seasl This pretty room where the letter 
had just been written belonged to her; the bed 
was quite new, and decorated in city fashion 
with muslin curtains bordered with lace, and on 
the thick walls was a light-colored paper which 
softened the irregularities of the stone. On the 
ceiling there was a coat of whitewash covering 
the enormous beams which showed the age of the 
cottage. It was in fact just the house of a well- 
to-do bourgeois; and the windows looked out on 
the old weather-stained market-place of Paimpol, 
where also religious festivals were held. 

“ It’s finished^. Grandmother Yvonne ? You 
have nothing more to say to him?” 

“ No, my child; only add, please, my regards 
to young Gaos.” 

Young Gaos, otherwise Yann. 


28 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


She colored deeply, the proud young beauty, 
as she wrote this name. 

When she had put it at the bottom of the page, 
in a running hand, she got up and turned away 
her head, as if to look at something very interest¬ 
ing outside in the market-place. As she stood 
up, she seemed rather tall, and her figure looked 
finely moulded, like that of a woman of fashion, 
in a dress which fitted without a wrinkle. J 

In spite of her cap, she had the air of a young 
lady; and her hands, without having that dainty 
and helpless littleness which fashion has made a 
beauty, were white and refined, never having done 
any rough work. It is true she began by being a 
little tomboy, running barefoot in the water, hav¬ 
ing no mother, and left to run almost wild dur¬ 
ing the fishing seasons, when her father had gone 
to Iceland; pretty, rosy, uncombed, wilful, and 
headstrong, she had grown up strong and healthy 
in the fresh, sharp air of the Channel. During 
this time she was taken care of in the summers 
by poor Grandmother Moan, who left Sylvestre in 
her charge during her hard days of work among 
the towns-folk of Paimpol. 

She adored this baby who had been committed 
to her care, like a little mother, although she was 
hardly eighteen months older than he, who was 
as dark as she was fair, and as submissive and 
good-natured as she was impulsive and capricious. 
She often recalled this beginning of her life, this 
girl whom money and city life had not spoiled. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 29 

It came back to her mind like a far-away dream 
of wild liberty, like an echo of a vague and mys¬ 
terious ' time, when the beaches were wider, and 
the cliffs surely much more gigantic. 

While she was still very young, only about five 
or six years old, her father (who having made some 
money had become a ship-broker) took her with 
him first to Saint-Brieuc and afterward to Paris. 

From little Gaud, she had become Mademoi¬ 
selle Marguerite, — a tall and serious girl with a 
grave look in her eyes. Always a good deal left 
to herself, although in a different way from when 
she ran wild on the Breton sands, she still re¬ 
tained the wilful disposition of her childhood. 
What she knew about life she had picked up hap¬ 
hazard and almost unconsciously, but an innate 
dignity and an unerring instinct had been her 
safeguards. Every now and then she had little 
fits of audacity, when she surprised people by the 
daring things she said to their very faces. When 
young men looked at her, she looked them back 
full and square with her clear honest eyes; but her 
look was so fearless and so indifferent that they 
could not misunderstand her, and could see at 
once that she was an honest woman with a heart 
as pure as her face was sweet. 

With city life her dress had changed a good 
deal more than she had herself; and although she 
still wore her cap, which the women of Brittany 
are loath to give up, she had learned very quickly 
to dress herself in quite another way. And the 


3 ° 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


unconfined figure of the little fisher-girl, as it de¬ 
veloped in the vigor and perfection which her 
childhood by the sea had given her, had become 
smaller at the waist by the use of stays. 

She went back every year with her father to 
Brittany, but in the summer only, as if to a water¬ 
ing-place, and took up again for a time the asso¬ 
ciations of her childhood and her name of Gaud 
(which is Breton for Marguerite). And she was 
then a little curious perhaps to see those Iceland¬ 
ers of whom she had heard so much, who were 
always away, and from whose number year by year 
a few more were always missing; and she was ever 
hearing a great deal about this “ Iceland ” which 
seemed to her then like some far-off abyss, where 
he whom she now loved had gone. And then one 
fine day she had been brought back to live among 
these fishermen through a caprice of her father, 
who wished to end his days there as a good citizen 
of Paimpol. ~ 

The good old grandmother, so poor and so 
neat, thanked her and went away as soon as the 
letter had been read over again and sealed up in 
its envelope. She lived quite far away, at the be¬ 
ginning of the country of Ploubazlanec, in a ham¬ 
let near the sea, in a cottage where she and her 
children and grandchildren after her had been 
born. | As she went through the village, she 
nodded familiarly to many people who said 
“ Good-evening ” to her; she was one of the 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 31 

oldest inhabitants of the country, and the last 
remnant of a brave and respected family. 

By wonders of care and pains she managed to 
look almost well-dressed in her poor mended 
gowns, which were so old they could scarcely 
hold together. She wore the little brown shawl 
of the women of Paimpol, which was her best, 
over which for more than sixty years had fallen 
the muslin folds of her cap ; it was her own wed¬ 
ding shawl, first blue, then dyed for the wedding 
of her son Pierre, since then kept for Sundays, 
and still quite presentable." 

She walked erect, not at all like an old woman, 
and really, in spite of her chin turning up a little 
too much, her eyes were so pleasant and her 
profile so fine that one could not help think¬ 
ing her pretty. One could see that she was very 
much respected from the way people greeted her. 

On her way she went by the house of her “ gal¬ 
lant,”— a quondam lover of hers and a cabinet¬ 
maker by trade, who now at eighty years of age 
passed his time seated at his door, while his sons 
worked at the bench. He never got over it, they 
said, that she would not have him either for a 
first or a second husband; but time had turned 
his disappointment into a comical kind of feeling, 
half friendly, half spiteful, and he always called 
out to her as she went by, “ Well, my dear, when 
shall I come to take your measure? ” 

She thanked him, saying that she had not made 
up her mind to order that particular garment yet. 


3 2 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


The fact was that the old man, whose manner 
of jesting was somewhat ponderous, meant a cer¬ 
tain arrangement of pine boards which is the last 
of our earthly attire. 

“ Oh, well, whenever you wish; don’t disturb 
yourself, my dear, only you understand.” 

He had already made the same joke half a 
dozen times, and to-day she could hardly laugh at 
it, she felt so tired and so broken with her life of 
incessant toil; and she was thinking of her dear 
grandson, the last one she had left, who after his 
return from Iceland would have to go off to " ser¬ 
vice.” Five years ! Perhaps he might even have 
to go to China, to the war! Would she still 
be there when he returned ? A sharp pain went 
through her heart at the thought. No, certainly, 
she was not as happy as she seemed, this poor old 
woman; and her face began to work as if she 
were going to cry. 

Could it be, was it true, then, that they were go¬ 
ing to take him away from her, her last grandson ? 
And would she, alas ! be left to die alone, without 
seeing him again? 

It is true that something had been done by 
some gentlemen in the town whom she knew, to 
have him exempted from duty, he being the 
only support of his poor old grandmother, who 
would soon be unable to earn her living. But 
the attempt had not succeeded, on account of 
that other, Jean Moan, the deserter, — an elder 
brother of Sylvestre, who was never spoken of in 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


33 


the family, but who was living, nevertheless, some¬ 
where in America, depriving his younger brother 
of the privilege of military exemption. 

And then, besides, they brought up as an objec¬ 
tion the poor little pension she received as a 
sailor’s widow; they did not think she was poor 
enough. 

When she had gotten home, she said her prayers 
at length for all her dead sons and grandsons, and 
then she prayed with earnest faith for her little 
Sylvestre and tried to go to sleep; but she kept 
thinking about this garment of pine boards, and 
she was terribly oppressed in her heart to feel so 
old when he was going away. 

But the girl remained seated at the window, 
watching the golden reflections of the setting sun 
on the granite walls, and the dusky swallows 
wheeling in the sky. 

Paimpol is always very quiet in these long May 
evenings, even on Sundays. The young girls, who 
have not a soul to make love to them even a lit¬ 
tle, wander about in twos and threes, dreaming of 
their sweethearts in Iceland. — “ My regards to 
young Gaos.” 

It had disturbed her very much to write that 
sentence and that name, and she could not help 
thinking of it. 

She often passed her evenings at this window 
like a city girl. 

Her father did not much like to have her walk- 


3 


34 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


ing about with the other girls of her own age and 
her own former position. And then, when he came 
out of the cafe and strolled about with his pipe, in 
company with two or three old salts like himself, 
he liked to see her up there framed in her granite 
window among the flowers — his daughter, the 
mistress of his rich and comfortable home. 

“ Young Gaos,” — in spite of herself she looked 
off toward that ocean which she could not see, 
but whose near presence she felt, at the foot of 
the narrow alleys through which the boatmen 
come and go. 

And her thoughts went out over the fathomless 
depths of that mighty enchantress, — the ever fasci¬ 
nating and devouring sea,—away over there to the 
Polar seas, where the “ Marie,” Captain Guermeur, 
was sailing. 

What a strange fellow was this Yann Gaos, now 
always evading her, although he had once ad¬ 
vanced with such daring and such sweetness ! 

Then in a long revery she went over in her mind 
all that had happened the year before when she 
returned to Brittany. One morning in December, 
after travelling all night, the Paris train left them, 
her father and her, at Guingamp, just as the cold 
white winter dawn was breaking through the mist. 

Then a strange new feeling came over her; 
she did not even recognize the little old village 
which she had hitherto seen only in summer, and 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


35 


it gave her the sensation of stepping all at once 
into the “long ago,” — into the dim vistas of the 
past. It was so still after Paris ! The people 
going quietly to and fro in the mist, about their 
little affairs, seemed to belong to another world ! 
And the dismal granite houses were dark with 
moisture and the shadows of the departing night. 

All these Breton scenes which she loved now so 
much on account of Yann, seemed sad and desolate 
enough that morning. The thrifty housewives 
were already astir, and through the open doors 
she caught glimpses of old-fashioned rooms with 
wide chimneys, where the old people, just out of 
their beds, and still in their night-caps, were 
quietly sitting. As soon as it had grown a little 
lighter, she went into the church to say her prayers. 
And how vast and shadowy the great nave seemed 
to her; and how different from the churches of 
Paris, with its rude columns, worn at the base by 
the centuries, and its cave-like smell of age and 
saltpetre ! In a deep corner behind some col¬ 
umns a taper was burning, with a woman kneeling 
before it, doubtless making a vow; the light of 
its slender flame was lost in the dim spaces under 
the arches. And suddenly there came over her 
the echo of a feeling long since forgotten, — that 
kind of gloomy fear which she used to feel when 
she was quite little, and they brought her on winter 
mornings for early Mass to the church of Paimpol. 

She was certainly not sorry to leave Paris, al¬ 
though there were so many beautiful and amusing 


36 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 

things to be seen there. In the first place she 
felt almost cooped up there,—she, in whose veins 
ran the blood of rovers of the deep. And then 
she felt strange and out of place. The women of 
Paris were made differently from her, with their 
small waists and artificially large hips; they had a 
different way of walking, moving along in their 
whaleboned dresses, and she was too sensible 
ever to try to copy them in the least. She 
found herself ill at ease in the streets of Paris, 
with her caps which she ordered every year 
from Paimpol, not being conscious that if people 
turned very often to look at her, it was because 
she was so charming. 

She had seen distinguished-looking people whom 
she admired, but she knew them to be unap¬ 
proachable ; and from the others among the 
lower classes, who would have been glad of her 
acquaintance, she held herself disdainfully aloof, 
not thinking them worthy of it. 

So she had lived without friends, almost without 
companionship other than that of her father, who 
was often preoccupied and often away. No, she 
did not regret a life of such solitude and exile. 

But, nevertheless, on this first day she had been 
painfully surprised by the roughness of this Brit¬ 
tany in midwinter; and the thought that they 
were going four or five hours more by carriage to 
bury themselves still deeper in this melancholy 
country before they would arrive at Paimpol, dis¬ 
turbed and depressed her. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


37 


So all the afternoon of the gray winter’s day 
she and her father had travelled on in a little 
dilapidated old diligence, open to all the winds of 
heaven, passing at twilight through dismal little 
villages beneath naked, dripping trees. 

Soon the lanterns had to be lit, and then there 
was nothing more to be seen except two rays of 
green Bengal light which seemed to be running on 
either side of the horses, which were the lights of 
their lanterns cast along the interminable hedges 
by the roadside. But why this green foliage in 
winter ? 

Astonished at first, she leaned out to look more 
closely, and then it seemed as if she remembered. 

The furze, — the same furze of the cliffs and 
the paths, which never grows yellow in the coun¬ 
try of Paimpol. And all at once a milder breeze 
began to blow which she thought she remem¬ 
bered also, and which smelt of the sea. 

Toward the end of their journey she had been 
thoroughly aroused and interested by a thought 
which suddenly occurred to her. 

"To be sure, since we have come in winter 
this time, I shall see those handsome fishermen of 
Iceland.” 

In December they were sure to be there, all 
back again, — brothers, sweethearts, lovers, and 
cousins, about whom their friends, big and little, 
had talked so much during all those evening 
strolls together, while they were away on their 
summer voyages. 


38 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

And her mind had been busy with this thought, 
while her feet were freezing in the wagon. 

And see them indeed she did, and had lost her 
heart to one of them. 


CHAPTER IV. 

The first time she ever saw Yann was the day 
after her arrival, at the feast of the “ Pardon,” of 
the Icelanders, which occurs on the 8th of De¬ 
cember, — the feast-day of Our Lady of Good 
News, patroness of fishermen, — a little while 
after the procession, when the dark streets were 
still hung with white draperies on which had been 
fastened ivy and holly, the foliage and flowers of 
winter. 

At this feast the rejoicing seemed a little forced 
and boisterous under the melancholy sky, — a joy 
without gayety, made up of recklessness and de¬ 
fiance, of physical vigor and alcohol, and over 
which hung, less disguised than elsewhere, the 
universal menace of death. 

Great noise in Paimpol; sound of bells and 
chants .of priests. 

Rude and monotonous songs in the taverns, 
old airs to cradle sailors; old complaintes come 
from the sea, come from I know not whence, 
from the deep night of time ; groups of sailors arm 
in arm, zigzagging down the street, rolling about, 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


39 


partly on account of their usual gait, and partly 
because already a little drunk, and after their 
long absence at sea, looking curiously at the 
women. 

Groups of girls in white muslin caps, breasts 
heaving, and beautiful eyes filled with the dreams 
of the summer; old granite houses shutting in 
the swarming crowd; old roofs telling of their 
centuries of struggle with the west winds, and 
with the fogs and the rains, with all that comes 
from the sea, telling also of the warm human 
episodes they had sheltered, ancient adventures 
of daring and of love. 

And over all was a feeling of religious sentiment, 
a sense as of other years, and a reverence for 
ancient observances, for the protecting symbols 
and the white and immaculate Virgin. Beside 
the taverns was the church, its steps strewn with 
leaves, its shadowy portal open wide, with its 
odor of incense, its tapers glimmering in the 
darkness, and the votive offerings of the sailors 
hung everywhere over the sacred walls. And 
there side by side were girls with their lovers, 
sweethearts of missing sailors, and widows of the 
lost and shipwrecked, with their long black shawls 
and little crepe caps, coming out of the chapel 
for the dead and passing silently with cfowncast 
eyes through all this noisy life, like a sinister 
warning. 

And over there very near by was the sea, the 
eternal sea, — the great nurse and the great de~ 


40 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


stroyer of these vigorous generations of men, 
she too busy and unquiet, making her noise, 
taking her part in the feast. 

Gaud received a confused impression of all 
this jumble of things. Excited and smiling, she 
was nevertheless oppressed at heart, and felt a 
sort of shuddering presentiment take possession 
of her at the thought that this country had now 
become her own for good and all. In the mar¬ 
ket-place, where there were shows going on and 
mountebanks performing, she walked about with 
her friends, who told her, right and left, the names 
of the young men of Paimpol and Ploubazlanec. 
Standing in front of a group of these singers of 
old ballads, with their backs turned toward them, 
were two or three Icelanders. 

Then, noticing one of them who had the fig¬ 
ure of a giant and shoulders which were almost 
too large, she remarked quietly with a touch of 
irony, — 

“ There is one who is tall enough ! ” 

Her manner of saying this almost implied, — 
“What a lumbering thing a husband of that 
size would be for his wife to have around ! ” 

He turned around as if he had heard her, look¬ 
ing her over from head to foot with a rapid glance 
which seemed to say, — 

“ And who is that fine girl, she with the Paim¬ 
pol cap, whom I have never seen before? ” 

Then he dropped his eyes quickly for po¬ 
liteness’ sake, seeming again to be entirely occu- 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 41 

pied with the singers, and only showing the back 
of his head, with its dark and curly locks cluster¬ 
ing over his neck. 

Although Gaud asked quite naturally the names 
of a number of others, she did not dare ask his. 
That beautiful profile which she could just see, 
that proud and almost haughty glance, those 
brilliant quick eyes of his, with their tawny gleam, 
had deeply impressed and almost frightened her. 
But it was this very Yann Gaos, this friend of 
Sylvestre of whom she had heard so much at the 
Moans’; the evening of this same fete-day she 
and her father had met him and Sylvestre walking 
along arm in arm, and they had stopped to bid 
them good-evening. 

As for little Sylvestre, he had immediately be¬ 
come a sort of brother to her again. As they 
were cousins, they had continued to say “ thou ” 
to each other. True, she hesitated a little at first 
before this great youth of seventeen with his black 
beard; but his clear, childish eyes were just as 
of old, and she soon became so used to him that 
it seemed as if she had never lost sight of him. 
When he came to Paimpol, she kept him to din¬ 
ner as a matter of course, and he always ate with 
a very good appetite, having none too much to 
eat at home. 

To tell the truth, Yann had not been so very 
polite to her at this first introduction, at the 
corner of a little gray, dusty street, all over-arched 
with green branches. He had been compelled 


42 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


to take off his hat, which he did with a very grace¬ 
ful although slightly embarrassed manner; then, 
having looked her over with his rapid glance, he 
turned his eyes away, seeming to be sorry they 
had met, and in a hurry to go on his way. A 
high west wind, which had risen during the pro¬ 
cession, had strewn the ground with branches from 
the box-trees, and spread dark gray curtains over 
the sky. It all came back to Gaud very plainly 
as she recalled it, — the melancholy closing in of 
the night at the end of the fete; the white sheets 
decked with flowers flapping with the wind ; along 
the walls the noisy groups of Icelanders, — men 
of winds and tempests, who ran singing into the 
taverns, hurrying to escape the rain; and then 
this great fellow standing there before her, turn¬ 
ing away his head as if he was bored, and sorry 
he had met her. What a change had come over 
her since then ! And what a difference between 
the noise and confusion of that twilight ending of 
the fete and the tranquillity which now reigned; 
and how silent and empty was this same Paimpol 
during the long May twilight which kept her at 
her Window, dreaming, in love, and alone ! 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


43 


CHAPTER V. 

The second time she saw him was at a wed¬ 
ding. Yann had been assigned to walk with her. 
At first she thought she would not like it very 
well, to have to promenade along the street with 
this great fellow, whom everybody looked at on 
account of his size, and who besides would prob¬ 
ably not have a word to say to her on the way. 
And then really she was afraid of him, with his 
haughty indifferent ways. 

Af the appointed hour everybody had assem¬ 
bled for the procession, and Yann had not yet 
appeared. Time went on; he did not come ; and 
they were beginning to talk about not waiting 
any longer for him. Then she saw that it was 
for him alone that she had made herself pretty, 
and that it made no difference to her what other 
young men were there; without him the fete and 
the ball would be nothing to her. 

Finally he made his appearance, dressed in his 
best, and made his excuses quite naturally to the 
parents of the bride, saying that a great shoal of 
fish had quite unexpectedly been signalled from 
England, as being expected to pass that night a 
little off D’Aurigny, and that then every boat at 
Ploubazlanec had been hastily gotten under sail. 
There was great excitement in the villages around, 
— women running to the wine-shops in search of 


44 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


their husbands, pushing them even to make them 
run, making a great to-do themselves at helping 
the crews and hoisting the sails; in short, there 
was a regular hubbub in the place. 

Yann told his story easily and fluently to the 
people who stood around, with gestures peculiar 
to himself, with flashing eyes, and a pleasant smile 
which showed his brilliant white teeth. The bet¬ 
ter to express the hurry of the getting ready for 
sea he gave from time to time between his sen¬ 
tences a curious prolonged little hou , which is a 
way sailors have of expressing the idea of speed, 
and sounds like the whistling of the wind. 

He himself had been obliged to look in haste 
for a substitute, and to get him accepted by the 
captain of the vessel to whom he had engaged 
himself for the winter season. This was the 
reason why he had been late; and because he 
had not wanted to miss the wedding he would 
have to lose all his share of the haul. His ex¬ 
planation was quite satisfactory to his audience, 
fishermen like himself, and nobody dreamed of 
blaming him; of course every one knows that 
everything in life depends more or less on the 
chances of the sea, and is subject to the changes 
of the weather and the mysterious migrations of 
the fish. The other Icelanders who were there 
only regretted not having been told in time, as 
the men of Ploubazlanec were to take advantage 
of that chance of fortune which was passing by 
on the open sea. 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


45 


It was too late then, — so much the worse, — 
and they had nothing to do but to offer their arms 
to the girls. The violins struck up and the proces¬ 
sion started merrily on its way. 

At first Yann had only paid her those idle little 
compliments with which one would naturally ad¬ 
dress a young girl whom one knew but slightly, 
at a wedding. They were the only ones who 
were strangers to each other among the couples 
at the wedding, and in fact, besides them there 
were only relatives and fiances in the procession. 
There were two or three pairs of lovers too, for 
they get on very fast in love-making in the coun¬ 
try of Paimpol, and they usually marry their first 
loves. 

But in the evening, during the dancing, when 
they had begun to talk again about the pass¬ 
ing of this great shoal of fish, suddenly looking 
straight into her eyes he made this unexpected 
remark, “ There is no one else in Paimpol — and 
even in the world — who could have made me 
miss that trip; no, there is certainly no one else 
who could have kept me from my fishing, Made¬ 
moiselle Gaud.” 

At first she was astonished that this fisherman 
should dare to speak thus to her, — to her who 
was almost the queen of the ball, — and then, 
pleased and fascinated, she finally answered, 
“ r Phank you, Monsieur Yann, I too would rather 
be with you than with any one else.” 

That was all; but from that moment till the end 


46 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


of the ball they spoke to each other in a tone at 
once lower and more sweet. 

They danced in the old-fashioned way to the 
music of a violin, the same couples being almost 
always together. When he came back to her after 
having danced with somebody else out of polite¬ 
ness, they smiled at each other like old friends 
and took up their confidential conversation where 
they had left it. Yann was telling her quite 
simply about his fisherman’s life, of his hardships 
and his wages, and of the hard time his parents 
had had to bring up the fourteen little Gaoses, of 
whom he was the eldest. At present they were 
m a little easier circumstances, particularly on 
account of a wreck which their father had come 
across in the Channel, and which he had sold for 
ten thousand francs to the State. That had en¬ 
abled them to put an upper story on their house, 
which was at the extremity of the province of 
Ploubazlanec, quite at the end of the world, in 
the hamlet of Pors-Even, with a beautiful view 
over the Channel. “ It’s hard enough,” he said, 
“this life of an Iceland fisherman, to start in 
February for a country like that, where it’s so 
cold and so dark, and the sea so rough.” 

Gaud went slowly over all their conversation at 
the ball, which she remembered as if it were 
yesterday, as she watched the May night closing 
in gently over Paimpol. If Yann had had no idea 
of marriage, why had he told her all these details 
about his life, which she had listened to almost 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 4 7 

as if she were engaged to him ? He certainly did 
not seem like a man who would want to tell his 
private affairs to every one. 

“ It’s a good enough trade, all the same,” he 
said, “ and I shall never change it for any other. 
Some years I make eight hundred francs, some¬ 
times twelve hundred, which they give me when 
we get back, and which I take to my mother.” 

" You give it to your mother, Monsieur Yann? ” 

“ Why, yes. All of it, always. It’s the custom 
among us Icelanders, Mademoiselle Gaud. [He 
said this as if it were a duty, and quite the natural 
thing.] And as for me, you would not believe 
it, but I scarcely ever have any money. On 
Sundays when I come to Paimpol, Mother gives 
me a little. It’s the same with us all. And this 
year Father ordered me these new clothes, without 
which I should not have wanted to come to the 
wedding. Oh, no ! I should not have come to 
offer you my arm in my last year’s clothes.” 

These new clothes of Yann did not seem so 
very elegant to her, who had been accustomed to 
see the well-dressed Parisians. The very short 
jacket was open over a waistcoat of a somewhat 
old-fashioned cut; but the figure underneath was 
a model of perfection, and he danced superbly. 

Every time he said anything to her he looked 
her smilingly full in the face to see what she 
thought of it. And what a frank, honest look 
there was in his eyes as he told her all this, so that 
she would be sure to know that he was not rich ! 


4S 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


And she too smiled back, still looking in his 
eyes, answering little, but listening with her whole 
soul, more and more astonished, and more and 
more drawn toward him. And what a mixture he 
was of almost brute force and sweet-tempered 
childishness ! His deep voice, which with others 
was brusque and decided, became as he talked with 
her more and more gentle and caressing. It was 
for her alone that it could thrill with such sweet¬ 
ness, like the soft strains of a stringed instrument. 

And what a curious and unexpected thing it 
was to find this great fellow, with his indifferent 
ways and his huge size, always treated at home 
like a little child, and thinking it quite natural, 
and although he had travelled the world over, 
and been through all kinds of dangers, still re¬ 
taining this respectful and absolute obedience to 
his parents ! 

Gaud compared him with others, with two or 
three coxcombs of Paris, — shopmen, clerks, and 
the like, — who had persecuted her with their 
attentions on account of her money; and he 
seemed to her to be the best as well as the hand¬ 
somest man she had ever known. To put herself 
on more equal terms with him, she had told him 
that they too had not always been so comfortably 
off; that her father had begun by being an Iceland 
fisherman, and had still much affection for the 
Icelanders ; and that she herself remembered run¬ 
ning barefoot when she was quite little — on the 
sands — after the death of her poor mother. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


49 


Oh, that night of the ball, — that lovely night, 
the one decisive night of her life, — it was already 
quite long past, since that was in December and 
now it was May! All those handsome dancers 
were off there fishing now, — scattered over the 
Iceland sea, and still seeing clearly by the pale sun¬ 
light in their limitless solitude, while the darkness 
was gently falling over the land of Brittany. 

Gaud still stayed at the window. The market¬ 
place of Paimpol, almost shut in by ancient 
houses, seemed more and more gloomy and de¬ 
serted as the night came on, and there was 
scarcely a sound to be heard. 

Above the houses, the still, luminous skies 
seemed to lift and divide themselves more and 
more from earthly things, which now at this 
twilight hour seemed to combine into one black 
silhouette of old roofs and gables. Now and then 
one could hear a window or a door shutting, and 
some old salt with a rolling gait coming out of a 
tavern and disappearing down the little dark 
streets, or some belated girls coming home from 
their walk, with bouquets of May-flowers. One of 
these last, who was a friend of Gaud, said good¬ 
evening to her as she passed, and with extended 
arm held out to her a branch of hawthorn, as if 
to let her smell it. She could still see through 
the clear shadow its little branches of white 
flowers. There was also another soft fragrance 
rising from the gardens and courtyards all around, 
— the perfume of honeysuckle blooming on the 
4 


5 <> 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


granite walls mingled with a faint odor of seaweed 
from the harbor. The last bats slid through the 
air with a silent flight, like things in a dream. 

Gaud had spent many an evening at this win¬ 
dow looking out on the deserted market-place, 
dreaming of the absent Icelanders, and thinking 
always about this ball. 

It had become very warm toward the end of 
the wedding, and many heads began to turn. 
She remembered Yann dancing with other women 
or girls whom he ought to have cared more or 
less about. She remembered how coolly and 
condescendingly he replied to their advances. 
How different he was with them ! 

He danced beautifully, holding himself as straight 
as a forest oak, and turning both lightly and grace¬ 
fully, with his handsome head thrown back. His 
thick brown curls fell a little over his forehead as 
he danced; and Gaud, who was rather tall herself, 
felt them touch her cap as he leaned over to hold 
her better in a rapid waltz. 

From time to time Yann would point to his little 
sister Marie and Sylvestre, who were engaged, and 
always danced together. And he smiled very 
pleasantly to see the two young things so proper 
and reserved, bowing respectfully to each other 
and saying very pretty things, no doubt, very tim¬ 
idly and almost in a whisper. He would not have 
wished it otherwise, of course, but it was neverthe¬ 
less very amusing to him, rover and adventurer as 
he was, to see them so innocent and good. And 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 51 

he would smile confidentially at Gaud, as much as 
to say, “How nice our little brother and sister 
are, and yet how funny it is to watch them ! ” 

There was much embracing at the end of the 
ball, — brotherly kisses, cousinly kisses, kisses of 
lovers, all given full on the lips before everybody in 
the most frank and simple manner possible. Yann 
did not kiss Gaud, of course; the daughter of 
M. M£vel would not permit anything like that. 
He only held her a little more tightly perhaps 
during the last waltzes; and she did not resist, 
but rather permitted it, giving herself up un¬ 
reservedly. In this sudden whirl of deep and 
delicious emotion in which she was so completely 
drawn toward him, the natural impulses of a young 
woman probably counted for something; but it 
was her heart which first went out to him. 

“ See the bold thing, the way she is looking at 
him ! ” remarked two or three pretty girls, who 
held their eyes modestly cast down under their 
blond or dark eyelashes, but who had among 
the dancers at least one lover, and probably two. 
And in fact she did look at him a good deal, but 
she had this excuse, that he was the first and only 
young man she had ever noticed in her life. 

And when they parted, as the ball finally broke 
up in the early frosty morning, they bade each 
other good-by in by no means an ordinary way, 
but more like two lovers, who would meet on the 
morrow. And then, on her way home she had 
crossed this same market-place with her father, 


52 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


not tired at all, but joyful and keenly alive, feel¬ 
ing that it was happiness enough to exist, delight¬ 
ing in the frosty mist outside and the pale gray 
dawn, and finding a new charm and a new pleas¬ 
ure in everything. 

The May night had long since quite closed 
down. The windows had all been shut, one by 
one, with a little rattle of their latches; but Gaud 
still stayed there, leaving her own window open. 

The last few passers-by were sure to say, as they 
made out the white shape of her cap in the dark¬ 
ness, “ There’s a girl who ’s certainly dreaming of 
her lover.” And it was true; she was dreaming of 
him and longing so to cry ! Her little white teeth 
kept biting her lips, constantly smoothing out the 
little fold which underlined the lower contour of 
her fresh young mouth; and still she gazed out 
into the darkness of the night, beholding only 
visions. 

But after the ball, why had she not seen him 
again ? What could have made the change in him ? 
When she met him by chance, he turned away 
those quick and brilliant eyes, and looked as if 
he wanted to avoid her. She had often talked it 
over with Sylvestre, who could not understand it 
either. 

“ But you will have to marry him all the same, 
Gaud,” he said, “ if your father will let you, for 
you won’t find another fellow in the country like 
him. He is very good, I can assure you, although 
he may not seem so. He almost never gets 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


53 


drunk. He is a little obstinate once in a while, 
that’s true ; but at heart no one is kinder than he. 
You really can’t think how good he is, and such 
a sailor ! Why, the captains quarrel every fishing 
season to see who shall get him.” 

As far as her father’s permission was concerned, 
she was sure of getting that, for she always had 
her own way. It mattered little that Yann was not 
rich; a sailor such as he would only need a little 
loan for six months or so, to learn the coast, and 
he would be a captain himself to whom any ship¬ 
owner would be glad to intrust his ship. It 
made no difference that he was so nearly a giant 
in size; it might be a defect in a woman to be 
too large and strong, but it does not detract at 
all from good looks in a man. She had made 
inquiries, besides, without seeming to at all, of 
the country girls, who know everybody’s love 
affairs, and no one had heard of his being en¬ 
gaged to any one; but without seeming to care 
more for one than another, he went about right 
and left among the girls in L£zardrieux as well 
as in Paimpol. 

One Sunday evening, very late, she saw him 
pass under her window, escorting, with his arm 
around her waist, a certain Jeannie Caroff, who 
was undoubtedly a very pretty girl, but whose 
reputation was none of the best; and how cruelly 
that had hurt her ! 

They told her too that he had a very violent 
temper, and that one night when he was drunk 


54 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


in a certain cafe in Paimpol which the Icelanders 
frequent, that he had broken in a door which 
they would not open for him, with a heavy mar¬ 
ble table. All that she forgave him; everybody 
knows how sailors will act sometimes when the 
fit takes them. But if he really had a good 
heart, why had he sought her out when she had 
no thought of him, only to leave her afterward? 
Why had he cared to look at her all one night 
with that pleasant smile of his which seemed so 
frank, and to 'speak to her with that sweet voice, 
confiding in her as if she were his sweetheart? 
And now she could love no other. She could 
never change. Long ago, in this self-same place, 
when she was still a child, they used to tell 
her that she was a naughty little thing, and the 
most obstinate child that ever was, and so she 
had remained. Beautiful girl as she was, with 
her serious and slightly haughty ways, nobody 
had tried to change her, and at heart she was 
just the same. 

The whole of the last winter, after the ball, she 
had passed in the expectation of seeing him 
again; and he did not even come to bid her 
good-by before leaving for Iceland. Now that 
he had gone, she had no longer any interest 
in anything; the time dragged slowly on toward 
that return in the autumn, for which she had 
made so many plans to unravel the whole mys¬ 
tery and have done with it. 

Eleven by the town clock. It rang out with 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


55 


that curious tone that bells have in still spring 
nights. Eleven o’clock at Paimpol is very late 
indeed, and Gaud shut her window, and lit her 
lamp to go to bed. 

Perhaps it was only his bad manners, or be¬ 
cause he was so proud and afraid of being refused 
because she was rich. She had already made 
up her mind to ask him quite simply what was 
the matter; but Sylvestre thought it would not 
do, that it would not be nice for a young girl to 
seem so forward. People in Paimpol had already 
criticised her dress and manners. 

Gaud took off her clothes slowly and absently as 
if lost in a dream. First her muslin cap, and 
then her pretty dress, made in city style, which 
she threw carelessly over a chair. 

And her figure, when once it was free and no 
longer confined and drawn in at the waist, be¬ 
came more perfect, regaining its natural lines, 
which were as graceful and perfectly rounded as 
those of a marble statue, — a statue all alive, and 
constantly changing with her movements, but 
whose every attitude was charming. 

The little lamp, burning alone at that late 
hour, lit up almost mysteriously her neck and 
shoulders, whose loveliness no one had ever yet 
beheld, and which would doubtless fade away 
unseen, since Yann would have none of her. 

Gaud knew her face was pretty; but she had no 
idea of the beauty of her figure. But then, in 
this part of Brittany, among the daughters of 


56 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

these Iceland fishermen, this beauty is almost a 
mark of race. 

It is hardly noticed, and even the worst of 
them have a modesty about letting it be seen, 
instead of making a show of it. No; it is the 
modem civilization of cities which attaches im¬ 
portance to such things as subjects for the sculp¬ 
tor or the painter. 

Gaud began to undo the little coils of hair which 
were rolled up over her ears, and the braids fell 
over her shoulders like two heavy serpents. 

She did them up in a crown on the top of her 
head, to be more comfortable while she slept, 
and then with her straight profile she looked 
like a Roman virgin. 

Still she stood with her arms uplifted, her 
fingers busy with her blond tresses, and still bit¬ 
ing her lips like a child playing with a toy while 
he thinks of something else ; then, letting the long 
braids fall again, she began quickly to undo them, 
unbraiding them and spreading them out to amuse 
herself until they covered her to her knees, and 
then she looked like some fair Druidess of the 
forest. And at last as she began to get sleepy 
in spite of all her love and longing to cry, she 
suddenly threw herself into her bed, hiding her 
head in the soft masses of her hair, which cov¬ 
ered her like a veil. 

In her cottage at Ploubazlanec Grandmother 
Moan — she who was going down the darker, 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


57 


downhill side of life — had also finally fallen 
asleep, that cheerless sleep of the aged, while 
thinking of her grandson and of death. 

At the same hour, on board the “ Marie,” in 
the northern sea, which was very rough that 
evening, Yann and Sylvestre — those two so 
missed at home — were fishing away gayly and 
singing songs by the continual light of the end¬ 
less day. 


CHAPTER VI. 

About a month later, in June. 

Off Iceland it was that rare kind of weather 
which sailors call “a white calm.” The air was 
perfectly motionless, as if all the tired breezes 
had vanished away. 

The heavens were covered with a great whitish 
veil, darkening a little at its lower edge near the 
horizon into a kind of leaden gray, — the color of 
dull tin. And underneath, the motionless waters 
glittered with a pale light, which fatigued the eyes 
and made one shiver; the sea looked like watered 
silk, with constantly changing ripples playing over 
its smooth surface, little delicate flaws like a 
breath on a mirror, and the whole glittering ex¬ 
panse of waters seemed covered with a network 
of indefinite designs, interlacing and effacing each 
other, quickly coming and quickly gone. 

It was impossible to say whether it was eternal 



58 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

evening or eternal dawn. A sun which no longer 
told the hour rested ever over the horizon as if 
presiding over the glittering, lifeless world; it 
seemed itself hardly more than a formless disk, 
immeasurably enlarged by the wavering halo 
which surrounded it. 

Yann and Sylvestre, as they fished on beside 
each other, were singing “Jean Francois de 
Nantes,” — a song without an end, — enjoying its 
very monotony, looking at each other out of the 
corners of their eyes, and laughing at the child¬ 
ish fun they were getting out of repeating forever 
these same couplets, and trying to sing them with 
a different expression each time. Their cheeks 
were ruddy with the salt freshness of the air they 
were breathing, which was pure and vivifying; and 
they filled their lungs full of it, as though from 
the .fountain-head of life and vigor. 

And yet all around them there was not a sign 
of life, but the semblance of a world that was 
dead, or of one not yet created; the light was 
without warmth, and everything seemed immova¬ 
ble, as if frozen stiff forever under the gaze of that 
great spectral eye, — the sun. 

The “ Marie ” cast a long reflection over the 
surface of the sea, like an evening shadow which 
looked green on the white and polished mirror in 
which was reflected the glaring light of the sky. 
And in all that part which was covered by the 
shadow could be seen everything that was going 
on underneath, on account of the clearness of the 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 59 

water. Innumerable fishes, thousands on thou¬ 
sands all alike, were gliding quietly along in the 
same direction, as if they all had the same pur¬ 
pose in their never-ending journey: These were 
the cod, which were performing their evolutions 
together, stretching along in the same direction in 
strictly parallel lines, — like gray clefts in the 
water, — and trembling constantly with a rapid 
movement which gave a look of fluidity to the 
mass of silent life. Sometimes, with a quick flip 
of their tails, they would all turn over at once, 
showing the glittering silver scales underneath; 
and with the same flip of the tail, they would 
all turn back again, communicating this motion 
through the entire school with slow undulations, 
as if thousands of metallic blades had flashed for 
a moment in the sunlight between two waves. 

The sun, already low in the sky, sank still 
lower; surely it must be evening. The lower it 
descended into the leaden banks of cloud which 
hung over the sea, the more yellow it became, and 
its shape grew more clear and defined, while one 
could bear to look at it, like the moon. It still 
shone; but you would have said that it was not 
so very far away, and that if you went in a boat 
only to the edge of the horizon, you would run up 
against this great melancholy balloon floating about 
in the air, two or three yards above the waters. 

The fishing went on fast enough; looking into 
the still water you could see very clearly how it 
was done: the cod swam up and took the bait 


6o 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


with a hungry snap, and then shook themselves a 
little, feeling the prick of the hook, only fastening 
it in more firmly, and then every few minutes the 
fishermen pulled in their lines, hand over hand, 
throwing over the fish to the man who split and 
flattened them. 

The little fleet of Paimpol fishing-boats was 
scattered over this tranquil mirror, enlivening the 
deserted waters. Here and there their small 
sails appeared in the distance, set as a matter of 
form, — for there was not a breath stirring, — and 
standing out white and clear against the gray 
line of the horizon. To-day it seemed a very 
quiet and easy business, — this Iceland fishing, 
only fit for girls. 

“ J ean Francois de Nantes ! 

Jean Fran5ois ! 

Jean Fran5ois ! ” 

they sang, — the two big children. 

Yann was not in the least conscious on account 
of his fine figure and his good looks; but he was 
never a child except with Sylvestre, and sang and 
joked with him alone. He was very reserved 
with others, and rather inclined to be serious and 
haughty, — very pleasant always, however, when 
anything was wanted of him, and always good 
and obliging as long as they did not annoy him. 

While they were singing this song, the two 
others, a few yards away, were singing something 
else, — some other medley of drowsiness, good 
health, and vague melancholy. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


61 


They were busy and content, and the hours 
went quickly by. 

Down below in the cabin a little fire smouldered 
away at the bottom of the iron stove, and the 
hatchway was closed to make it seem like night 
for those who wanted to sleep. They needed 
very little air while they slept; men much less 
robust and brought up in cities would have re¬ 
quired more. But when the lungs are expanded 
all day long with the air of this same limitless 
space, they too rest, as it were, and scarcely need 
to respire at all; so one can coil one’s self up in 
no matter how small a place, like an animal. 

The crew went to bed after their watch at odd 
times, just as the fancy took them, and their 
slumber was always healthy, quiet, and dreamless, 
and one in which they found complete repose. 

"Jean Francois de Nantes! 

Jean Frangois! 

Jean Francois 1 ” 

Just now they were looking at something 
barely distinguishable at the edge of the gray 
horizon, — a light smoke rising from the waters, 
like a microscopic spiral of another tone of gray, 
a little darker than that of the sky. They had 
noticed it immediately, with eyes long accustomed 
to look into the distance. 

“A steamer off there ! ” 

“ I think,” said the captain, looking more care¬ 
fully, “ that she is a government ship, a cruiser on 
her way home.” 


6 2 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


This light smoke was bringing news from 
France, and letters, among which was one from 
a certain old grandmother, written by the hand 
of a beautiful young girl. 

The steamer came up slowly; but soon they 
could distinguish her black hull. It was in fact 
a cruiser which had just completed a trip among 
the western fiords. 

At the same time a slight breeze sprung up, 
sharp and keen, and began to roughen in places 
the surface of the lifeless water. It drew upon 
the shining mirror figures in greenish blue, which 
lengthened out into rays, or spread out into fans, 
or multiplied into branches like seaweed. 

It came up very rapidly, with a rustling sound 
like a signal of awakening, as if foretelling the 
end of the great calm. And the sky, freed from 
its veil, cleared off; and the clouds gathering over 
the horizon were piled up in fleecy gray banks, 
forming, as it were, a misty rampart around the 
sea. 

The two interminable ice floes, one above and 
one below, between which the fishing fleet was 
lying, regained their deep transparency, as if the 
cloudy mistiness which had dimmed them had 
been wiped away. The weather changed, indeed, 
but in a rapid way which boded no good. 

From all points of the compass gathered the 
French fishing-boats which were cruising in those 
altitudes, — from Brittany, Normandy, Boulogne, 
or Dunkirk. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 63 

Like birds who come at a call, they flocked 
after the cruiser; they seemed to emerge from 
the empty line of the horizon, and appearing in 
every direction with their little grayish white sails, 
made the great pale desert of waters seem quite 
alive. 

No longer slowly drifting along, they had set 
their sails to the new fresh breeze, and came up 
at full speed. 

The coast of Iceland itself, although quite far 
away, loomed up, as if it too wished to come 
and join the company. It stood out more and 
more clearly, with its great mountains of naked 
rock, of which it allows only one side at a time 
to be seen, and even that with apparent reluc¬ 
tance. It seemed to lengthen out into another 
Iceland of a like color with itself, which little by 
little grew clearer and clearer; but it was only a 
visionary island, whose most gigantic mountains 
were nothing but condensed masses of cloud. 
And the sun, ever dragging low along the hori¬ 
zon, unable to mount on high, showed through 
this phantom island in such a way that it gave 
the strange illusion of being placed in front of it. 
Its halo was gone, and its round disk, again very 
sharply defined, seemed almost like some poor 
yellow planet, half dead and faltering, which had 
stopped there in the midst of chaos. 


The cruiser, which had now brought to, was 
quite surrounded by the fleet of Iceland fishing- 


64 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


vessels. Little boats detached themselves from 
all these ships, looking like walnut-shells on the 
ocean; taking on board rough men with long 
beards, in garments which looked uncouth 
enough. They all of them had something to 
ask for, almost like children, — remedies for 
their bruises, articles to use in repairs, provi¬ 
sions, and letters. 

And some of the men were sent by their cap¬ 
tains to be put in irons to expiate some disobe¬ 
dience or mutiny, and as they had all been in 
government service, it seemed quite natural to 
them. 

And when the quarter-deck was encumbered 
by four or five of these great fellows stretched 
out with the irons on their ankles, the old mate 
who had bound them would say, “ Lie over there, 
boys, so we can pass; ” which they did obedi¬ 
ently, with a smile. 

There were a great many letters that time for 
the Icelanders. Among others, two for the 
“ Marie,” Captain Guermeur; one for Monsieur 
Gaos, Yann; the second for Monsieur Moan,. 
Sylvestre (this had come by Denmark to Reikia- 
vik, where the cruiser had taken it off). 

The purser distributed them from his canvas 
bag, having trouble oftentimes in reading them, 
as they were not all written by practised hands. 

And the commander kept saying, “ Come, 
hurry up there ; the barometer’s falling.” 

He disliked to see all those little walnut-shells 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 65 

afloat on the sea, and so many fishermen together 
in that dangerous region. 

Yann and Sylvestre always read their letters 
together. This time it was by the light of a mid¬ 
night sun, which shone upon them from over the 
horizon, still with the same look of a dead star. 

Seated side by side at one corner of the bridge, 
with their arms around each other’s shoulders, they 
read very slowly, as if to take in more completely 
the home news which their letters gave them. 

In Yann’s letter Sylvestre found news of Marie 
Gaos, his little sweetheart; in Sylvestre’s were 
the funny stories of old Grandmother Moan, who 
had not an equal for writing amusing letters to 
those away from home; and then there was that 
last.line about Yann,— 

“ My regards to young Gaos.” 

When they had finished reading their letters, 
Sylvestre timidly showed his to his big friend, 
to make him notice whose hand had written it. 
“See, that’s pretty writing, isn’t it, Yann?” 

But Yann, who knew very well what young 
girl’s writing it was, turned away his head and 
shrugged his shoulders, as if he had had enough 
of this Gaud. 

Then Sylvestre carefully folded up the poor 
despised little letter, put it back in its envelope, 
and stuck it away under his jersey near his heart, 
saying sadly to himself,— 

“ They never in the world will be married ; but 
what can he have against her? ” 

5 


66 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


Midnight rang out by the bell of the cruiser, 
and still they remained sitting there, lost in a 
dreamy revery, thinking of home, and of those 
far away. 

At this moment the eternal sun, which had 
dipped his edge a little in the waters, began 
slowly to remount the skies; and it was morning. 





PART II. 


CHAPTER I. 



HE Iceland sun had quite changed its 
look and color, and the new day was 
ushered in by a foreboding dawn. 
The sun had quite emerged from its 
misty halo, and shone with resplendent rays, 
which shot across the sky like jets of flame herald¬ 
ing the coming storm. 

The weather for several days past had been 
too fine to last. The breeze whistled over this 
concourse of fishing-boats as if ordering them to 
disperse and clear the sea; then they began to 
scatter, to flee away like an army in retreat, and 
before nothing but the menace written in the sky 
which no one could mistake. 

It blew up stronger and stronger, and ships 
and crews alike trembled at the coming storm. 

The waves, as yet small, now began to run 
after one another in groups, and were roughened 
and seamed by long streaks of white foam which 








68 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


blew off like smoke with a little seething sound. 
One would almost have said that the sea was cook¬ 
ing and burning; and the shrill sound of it all 
grew louder every moment. 

The sailors thought no longer of fishing, but 
only of the safety of their ships. Their lines had 
long since been pulled in, and all were hastening 
away, some to seek shelter in the fiords, should 
they arrive in time; others preferred to round 
the southern point of Iceland, thinking it safer to 
put to sea, and to have open space before them 
to drive before the wind. They could still catch 
glimpses of one another, as here and there, in the 
trough of the seas, their sails could be seen rising 
and falling, — poor little wet things tired and flying, 
but still holding themselves erect like children’s 
toys of elder cork, which one blows over with a 
breath, but which always right themselves again. 

The heavy mass of clouds which was condensed 
over the western horizon into the shape of an 
island now began to unfold, and break up at the 
top, spreading out in tatters over the sky. It 
seemed inexhaustible; the wind expanded it, 
lengthened it, and stretched it out, unwinding 
it forever into dark curtains and spreading it over 
the clear yellow sky, which had now assumed a 
cold and livid aspect. 

And still the great breath which was disturbing 
everything grew stronger and stronger. 

The cruiser had gone off to find shelter under 
the lee of Iceland ; and the fishing-boats were left 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 69 

alone on the stormy sea, which had taken on a 
threatening and ugly look. They hastened to 
make all snug for bad weather, getting farther 
and farther apart ; they would soon be lost to 
sight. The waves, curling over into scrolls, con¬ 
tinued to chase one another, closing in and be¬ 
coming higher and still higher, while between 
them the great troughs grew ever wider. 

In two or three hours, this region of the sea, 
which had been so calm the evening before, had 
become one great effort and tumult, and instead 
of the former stillness, there was a deafening 
clamor of sound. This change which was now 
rapidly taking place before their eyes, without 
reason or purpose, why was it ? What a mystery 
of blind destruction ! The clouds had now quite 
unfolded themselves over the sky, coming ever 
from the west, piled up and pressed down and 
rapidly obscuring everything. Some yellow rents 
still remained, through which the sun shot down 
its rays. And the water, now greenish in color, 
became more and more streaked with zigzagging 
lines of froth. By noon the “ Marie ” looked quite 
prepared for a storm ; her hatchways closed, and 
her sails furled, she bounded, light and agile, over 
the waves in the midst of the increasing chaos, 
like a great porpoise for whom the tempests are a 
pastime. With only her mainsail set, she scudded 
before the gale, as the sailors’ expression has it. 

Overhead the sky had become quite dark, like 
a closed dome, lowering and black, with some 


70 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


coal-black wreaths, darker still, spread over its 
lower surface like great smutches. 

This dome of clouds seemed almost motionless, 
and one had to look very closely to discover that 
it was in full whirl of motion. Great gray sheets 
went hurrying past, continually replaced by others 
coming from below the horizon, like shadowy 
hangings, unwinding themselves forever as from 
an endless reel. 

The “ Marie ” flew before the storm, flew faster 
and faster; and the storm flew too before some 
unknown force, mysterious and terrible. The 
gale, the sea, the “ Marie,” all were seized by this 
same-madness of flight and speed in the same 
direction. Fastest of all hurried the wind, then 
came the great surges of the swell, heavier, slower, 
rushing after, then the “ Marie,” carried along in 
the universal movement. The waves pursued her 
with their foaming crests which rolled after her in 
a perpetual fall, and she, always overtaken and 
always outrun, still escaped them by the clever 
furrow which she left behind, in which their fury 
was exhausted. And in this flying pace what 
they felt the most was the sense of lightness, as if 
they were bounding over the waves without trou¬ 
ble or effort. When the “ Marie ” rose on the bil¬ 
lows, it was without a shock, and her descent was 
like a glide, giving one that sinking feeling which 
one has going down a Russian slide, or in the 
imaginary falls of a dream. She seemed to be 
sliding down backward, the fleeing mountain 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


V 


falling away from under her, to rush onward; and 
then she plunged again into one of those great 
abysses which were fleeing too, but without harm, 
for she but touched its horrible depth in a splash¬ 
ing of water which hardly wet her, and which fled 
too like the rest, — which fled and vanished away 
like smoke, into nothing. 

At the bottom of these abysses it was darker 
than ever; and after each wave which passed they 
looked back to see the next rising up behind 
them larger yet, and quite green and transparent, 
which hurried after them with furious contortions 
and crests ready to close over them, as if to say, 
“Wait till I catch you, till I swallow you up.” 

But no, it only lifted them as you would lift a 
feather in shrugging your shoulders, and almost 
gently they felt it pass under them with its rushing 
foam and its crash of falling water. 

So it went on, and grew ever worse and worse. 
The waves followed one another, more enormous 
yet, in vast mountain ranges, whose valleys were 
frightful to see. 

And all this mad movement grew faster and 
faster under an ever-blackening sky, in the midst 
of an ever-increasing uproar. 

It was indeed very bad weather, and they had 
to be on the alert. But as long as they had sea 
room before them and were able to run before 
the wind, all might be well. And as the “ Marie ” 
that year had spent the season in the most west¬ 
ern part of the Iceland fisheries, all this driving 


72 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


toward the east was so much gained on their way 
home. 

Yann and Sylvestre were at the helm lashed to 
it by the waist. They were still singing the song 
of “ Jean Francois de Nantes,” exhilarated by the 
rapid motion, and were shouting at the top of 
their voices, smiling at being able to hear them¬ 
selves no longer, amid all this clamor which had 
been let loose, amusing themselves by turning 
their faces to sing against the wind, and losing 
their breath. 

“ Well, boys, aren’t your mouths shut up there ? ” 
Guermeur asked them, poking his bearded face 
out of the half-opened hatchway like a jack-in- 
the-box. Oh, no, indeed ! no wind could shut 
them up. 

They were not afraid ; they knew just what they 
could stand and what they could not, and they 
had faith in the stanchness of their boat and in 
their own strong arms, as well as in the protection 
of that china Virgin which during forty years of 
journeyings to Iceland had so many times danced 
to that evil tune, always smiling from among her 
bouquets of artificial flowers. 

“Jean Fran5ois de Nantes ! 

Jean Frangois! 

Jean Frangois! ” 

Most of the time they could see but a very 
little distance about them. A few hundred yards 
away everything seemed to end in those frightful 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


73 


biliows which reared their white crests on high 
and shut them in. 

They seemed always to be in the middle of an 
enclosed space, although a constantly changing 
one, and then besides, everything was drowned in 
a kind of smoky spray which blew in clouds with 
the rapidity of lightning over the whole surface of 
the sea. 

But every now and then a rift of light would 
appear toward the northwest, and a puff of wind 
would rush down; and then a shivering light 
would strike across the sea from the horizon, and 
a long wavering reflection would stretch across the 
tossing white crests, making the sombre dome of 
the sky seem darker still. 

This rift of light was a terrible thing to see, for 
the glimpse it gave into the distances, into those 
dim vistas of storm, increased still more their fear, 
and made them see only too clearly that every¬ 
where the same tumult, everywhere the same fury 
prevailed, even beyond the great empty line of 
the horizon, — infinitely afar; the great terror had 
no limits, and they were alone in the midst of it. 

A titanic clamor sounded around and about 
them like the opening blast from the trumpet of 
judgment, foretelling the terror of the end of the 
world. They made out thousands of voices; those 
on high, either shrill or deep, and seeming almost 
distant from being so big, — this was the gale, the 
great soul of the uproar, the invisible power which 
carried on the whole thing. It was frightful; but 


74 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


there were other sounds, nearer, more material, 
and more threatening, rising from the tormented 
water which sizzled as if on live coals. 

Still it grew and grew. And now in spite of 
their flying pace, the sea began to cover them, 
“ to eat them up,” as they said : first the spray 
whipping them from aft, then great bales of water, 
thrown with a force which might break every¬ 
thing. The waves grew higher and still madly 
higher, and yet more and more ravelled out; and 
one saw them hanging about in great green tatters, 
which was the falling water scattered by the wind. 
It fell in heavy masses on the deck, with a crash 
which made the “ Marie ” tremble all over as if in 
pain. Now they could distinguish nothing more 
on account of all this drift of white froth; when 
the gusts groaned their deepest, they could see 
it whirled along in thicker clouds, like dust on 
the roads in summer. 

A heavy rain which had come on fell aslant, 
almost horizontally, and all these things hissed 
together, lashing and wounding like stripes. Still 
Yann and Sylvestre both remained there, lashed 
to the helm and holding on tightly, clad in their 
oilskins, which were stiff and shiny like sharkskins. 
They had tied them tight at the neck, wrists, and 
ankles, with bits of tarred rope, to keep out the 
water, which trickled all over them; and they 
braced their backs like buttresses when it came 
down the hardest, so as not to be thrown down. 
The skin of their cheeks was smarting, and they 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


75 


lost their breath at every moment; and after each 
great sea had passed over them, they looked at 
each other and smiled at the mass of salt which 
had collected on their beards. 

But finally this fury which would not abate, but 
remained at the same pitch of rage, became fear- 
fully fatiguing. 

The anger of men and of beasts is soon ex¬ 
hausted and appeased; but that of inanimate 
Nature — causeless, aimless, and mysterious as 
life or death — must long be endured. 

“Jean Fran5ois de Nantes! 

Jean Frangois ! 

Jean Frangois! ” 

The refrain of the old song still fell from their 
pale lips; but it was a tuneless sound, repeated 
almost mechanically from time to time. 

The excess of sound and motion had intoxi¬ 
cated and stupefied them; and in spite of their 
youth, their smiles turned to grimaces over their 
teeth, which were chattering with the cold, and 
their eyes, half closed under their salty, burning 
eyelashes, were fixed in a sort of savage stare. 
Bound to the helm like two pillars of marble, 
their hands cramped and blue, they made the 
necessary movements of the wheel almost uncon¬ 
sciously, through the mere force of habit. With 
their dripping hair and their contracted mouths, 
they became strange things to look at, and the 
savage which lurks at the bottom of every man 
appeared in them. 


76 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


They could see each other no longer; they 
simply knew they were there, one beside the other. 
At moments of the most frightful danger, each 
time there rose up behind them a new mountain 
of water, towering, roaring, and horrible, which 
rushed against the ship with a great dull crash, 
one of their hands would move involuntarily, 
making the sign of the cross. 

They thought no longer of anything, — neither 
of Gaud, nor of any other woman, nor of any 
marriage. It had lasted too long for them to be 
capable of thought; their intoxication of noise, 
fatigue, and cold had dulled their brains. They 
were but two pillars of flesh clutching the helm, 
two strong animals clinging there through the in¬ 
stinct of self-preservation. 


CHAPTER II. 

It was in Brittany; a cool day in the latter 
part of September. 

Gaud was walking along all alone over the 
country of Ploubazlanec toward Pors-Even. 

The Iceland boats had been back for more 
than a month, — except two which had disap¬ 
peared in the June storm. But the “ Marie ” 
had held her own, and Yann and all the crew 
were safely on shore. 

Gaud felt very much excited at going to visit 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


77 


Yann’s home. She had seen him only once since 
he came back from Iceland. It was when they 
had all gone together to see poor little Sylvestre 
off to “ service.” They went with him as far as 
to the diligence, when he, crying a little, and 
his poor old grandmother a great deal, had fi¬ 
nally departed to report at headquarters at Brest. 
Yann had come too to bid his little friend good- 
by ; but he pretended not to see Gaud when she 
looked at him, and as there was a crowd around 
the diligence, — others drafted for the service 
who were going away, and their relatives assem¬ 
bled to bid them good-by, — there was no op¬ 
portunity to speak to him. 

Then finally Gaud had made a great resolve, 
and although somewhat afraid, had gone herself 
to the Gaos’ house. Her father had had at one 
time some business with Yann’s (that complicated 
sort of business which among fishermen as well 
as peasants is never finished), and owed him a 
hundred francs’ commission for the sale of a 
ship which had just been accomplished. “ You 
might let me take the money, Father,” she said. 
“ I should like to see Marie Gaos, in the first 
place, and then I have never been so far in Plou- 
bazlanec, and it would amuse me to take such 
a nice long walk.” 

She was in fact deeply curious to see this fam¬ 
ily of Yann, the house, and the village where she 
perhaps might go herself one day. 

In one of her last conversations with Sylvestre 


78 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


before he went away, he had explained in a man¬ 
ner his friend’s rudeness. “ You see, Gaud, it’s 
because he is like this, — he has an idea that he 
does n’t want to marry any one. He only loves 
the sea, and one day, for a joke, he even said 
that he had promised to marry her.” 

She had forgiven Yann his queer ways; and 
seeing always in her memory that pleasant smile 
he wore at the ball, she had begun to hope again. 
If she should meet him there in his own home, 
she would not say anything herself to him, of 
course. She had no idea of being so bold as that; 
but when he saw her near to him again perhaps 
he might say something. 


CHAPTER III. 

Gaud walked briskly along for an hour, excited 
and nervous, and breathing in the health-giving 
breeze from the sea. Here and there, great crosses 
were planted at the cross-roads. Every now and 
then she passed little hamlets of seamen’s huts, 
which are beaten all the year round by the wind, 
and whose color is like that of the rocks. 

In one, where the road narrowed off suddenly 
between dark walls, with high roofs of thatch 
pointed like Celtic huts, she saw a tavern sign 
which made her smile, —“ At the Chinese Cider.” 

Two apes in pink and blue gowns, and with 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


79 


pig-tails, were painted drinking cider. A fancy 
of some old salt who had come back from that 
distant land, no doubt. She looked about at 
everything as she went by. When people are 
very much concerned about the object of their 
journey, they are more than ever interested in 
all the thousand details of their route. 

Gaud had now left the little village far behind; 
and the farther she advanced along this last head¬ 
land of Brittany, the fewer the trees became, and 
the more melancholy the country. 

The ground was rocky and uneven, and from 
all the little elevations she could see the ocean. 
There were no trees at all now, only the bare 
heath with its green furze, and here and there the 
divine crucified stretching out the great arms of 
their crosses against the sky, giving the whole 
region the look of a great place of justice. 

At one crossing, which was guarded by one of 
these great crucifixes, she stopped hesitating be¬ 
fore two roads, which disappeared among the 
thorny hills, when a little girl ran up just in time 
to relieve her from her embarrassment. 

“ Good-day, Mademoiselle Gaud.” She was a 
little Gaos, a small sister of Yann. When Gaud 
had kissed her, she asked her if her father and 
mother were at home. 

“ Papa and Mamma, yes, they are at home, only 
my brother Yann is away,” said the little one, 
quite innocently; “ he has gone to Loguivy, but I 
think he will be back before long.” 


8o 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


He was not there ! What evil fate was it which 
always and everywhere kept them apart? She 
was much inclined to put off her visit till another 
time. But here was this little girl who had met 
her on the way and might speak about it. What 
would they think of that at Pors-Even? So 
she decided to go on, thinking how long she 
could possibly stay before she would have to re¬ 
turn. 

The nearer she approached this village of 
Yann, in this desolate spot, the more rough and 
deserted everything appeared. The great sea- 
breeze which strengthens men makes the vegeta¬ 
tion lower, more scanty and stunted, and flattens 
it down into the hard earth. In the path there 
were a few seaweeds trailing on the ground, 
another foliage than ours, showing that another 
world was near, and spreading their salt odor in 
the air. 

Gaud met some few passers-by, — seafaring 
folk, who could be seen from afar in this naked 
country, standing out as if magnified against the 
distant high line of the sea. Pilots they were, or 
fishermen, who had the appearance always of 
gazing at something in the distance, of watching 
over the sea, as they passed her and bade her 
good-day. 

Their faces were bronzed, and looked very 
strong and manly under their sailor’s caps. The 
time would not go by, and really she did not 
know what to do to prolong her journey. Peo- 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 81 

pie looked astonished to see her walking so 
slowly. What was Yann doing at Loguivy ? 
Making love to the girls, perhaps — Ah, if 
she had only known how little he really cared 
about girls of the frivolous kind ! 

The “ fillettes de Paimpol,” as the old Iceland 
song has it, are much too free and easy, and would 
never be severe to a handsome fellow like him; 
but they had but little interest for him. He did 
not consider them worth even the little trouble it 
cost to make their conquest. No, he had merely 
gone to give an order to a certain basket-maker of 
that village who was the only one in the country 
who knew just the right way to make lobster- 
pots. His head was quite free from any thought 
of love at that moment. 

Gaud arrived at a chapel, which she had seen 
from a distance on a hill. It was a gray little 
chapel, very small and very old. In the midst 
of the sterility around, there grew along in the 
shadow of the wall a little clump of trees, gray 
too and already leafless, which looked like its 
hair thrown all to one side as if by some mighty 
invisible hand. And this hand was the same 
which sinks the fishermen’s boats in the sea, — the 
eternal hand of the west wind, which hides unseen 
in the rush of the waves and the swell, and the 
twisted branches on the shore. They had grown 
gnarled and twisted, these old trees, and their 
backs were bent under the incessant pressure of 
this mighty hand. 


6 


82 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


Gaud found herself nearly at the end of her 
journey, since this was the chapel of Pors-Even, 
and she stopped here to gain a little more time. 

A low wall half sunken in the ground marked 
out an enclosure which contained a number of 
crosses. Everything was of one color, — the 
chapel, the trees, and the tombstones; the whole 
place seemed stained and crumbling away under 
the action of the sea and the wind. The same 
grayish lichens, with spots of sulphurous yellow, 
covered the tombstones, the knotty branches, and 
the statues of saints in granite which stood in 
the niches of the wall. 

On one of the wooden crosses a name was 
painted in large letters: Gaos, — Gaos, Joel, 
aged eighty years. 

Ah, yes, to be sure, the grandfather; she 
knew that. The sea would have none of that old 
mariner. And then of course a number of 
Yann’s relatives would naturally be buried here, 
and she should have expected it; nevertheless, 
that name read thus on this tombstone made a 
painful impression upon her. 

In order to pass away a few moments more, 
she went in under the ancient little porch (which 
was worn with age and roughly plastered and 
whitewashed) to say a prayer. But there she 
stopped again with a still greater sinking of 
the heart. 

“Gaos,”—again that name, engraved on one 
of those tablets which are put up in memory of 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 83 

those who have been lost at sea. She began to 
read the inscription. 

To the memory of 
Gaos, Jean Louis, 

aged 24 years, sailor on board the “ Marguerite,” 
which was lost near Iceland, 3 Aug., 1877. 

May he rest in peace ! 

Iceland, — always Iceland ! everywhere around 
in the entrance to the chapel were fastened other 
wooden tablets, bearing the names of dead 
sailors. It was the corner of the Pors-Even 
sailors who had been lost at sea, and she was 
sorry she had come there, and felt oppressed 
with a gloomy presentiment. She had seen 
many such inscriptions in the church at Paimpol, 
but here in this village, the empty tomb of the 
fishermen seemed smaller, and somehow, more 
lonely, more desolate and decayed. On each side 
of the porch was a granite bench for widows and 
mothers; and the low irregular grotto-like place 
was guarded by a very good-natured old Virgin, 
freshly painted in red, with great wicked eyes, who 
looked like Cybele, the first goddess of the earth. 

Gaos, again! 

In memory of 
Gaos, Francois, 
husband of Anne-Marie-Le Goaster, 

Captain of the “ Pampolais,” 
which was lost near Iceland between 
the ist-3d April, 1877, 
with her whole crew of twenty-three men. 

May they rest in peace! 


8 4 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


And below were two more crossbones, under 
a black skull with green eyes, — a rude mortuary 
design, expressing the barbarity of a former age. 

Gaos ! everywhere that name ! Another Gaos, 
called Ives, swept off his ship and lost near the 
northern fiord\ aged 22 years. This tablet seemed 
to have been there for many a year; he was prob¬ 
ably quite forgotten by this time. 

As she read it, an excess of almost despairing 
tenderness for Yann filled her heart. Never, no 
never, would he belong to her. Why dispute 
for him with the sea, which had devoured so 
many others of his name, ancestors and brothers 
who were probably just like him? 

Gaud went into the chapel, where it was already 
nearly dark, dimly lighted as it was by the low 
windows in the thick walls. 

And then her heart filled with unshed tears; 
she knelt to pray before the saints and virgins, 
enormous in size and wreathed in rude flowers, 
whose heads nearly touched the vaulted roof. 
Outside, the wind, which was rising, began to sob 
and sigh as if bringing back to the land of Brit¬ 
tany the wail of these lost fishermen. The even¬ 
ing was coming on; she would have to make up 
her mind to pay her visit and execute her com¬ 
mission. She started on her way again, and after 
having inquired in the village, she found the Gaos’ 
house, which was built up against a high cliff, a 
flight of a dozen granite steps leading up to it. 
Trembling slightly at the idea that Yann might 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


85 


have returned, she crossed the little garden where 
chrysanthemums and speedwells were growing; 
as she went in she said that she had brought the 
money for the sale of the ship, and they offered 
her a seat very politely, asking her to wait until 
the return of their father, who would then make 
out a receipt for it. She looked for Yann among 
all those who were there, but did not see him. 

They were very busy indoors; on a large 
white table lay cut out in new cotton those coats 
called “ oilskins,” which they were getting ready 
for the coming season in Iceland. 

“ You see, Mademoiselle Gaud, each man must 
have two complete changes when he’s out there.” 
Then they explained to her how they painted 
and oiled them afterward, — these bad-weather 
clothes. 

While they were giving her all the little details, 
her eyes wandered curiously about the room. It 
was arranged in the traditional fashion of the Bre¬ 
ton cottages; an enormous chimney occupied one 
end, and beds in wooden presses were built along 
the sides. But it was not dark or gloomy like the 
huts of laborers, which are always half sunken in 
the ground by the wayside. It was light and 
cheerful, as the cottages of seafaring men usually 
are. Several little Gaoses were there, — boys and 
girls, all Yann’s brothers and sisters, without count¬ 
ing two grown-up ones who were away at sea; 
and then one very little blond girl, sad-looking 
and neat, who did not look like the others. 


86 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


“ One we adopted last year,” the mother ex¬ 
plained. “ We already had enough, to be sure; 
but what could we do, Mademoiselle Gaud? Her 
father was on the ‘ Marie-Dieu-t’aime,’ which was 
lost off Iceland last season, as you know; then we 
neighbors divided the five children who were left 
among us, and she is the one who fell to our 
share.” 

Hearing that they were talking about her, the 
little adopted child hung her head and smilingly 
hid herself behind little Laumec Gaos, who was 
her favorite. 

There was an air of comfort about the whole 
house, and the fresh look of perfect health in the 
rosy cheeks of the children. 

They treated Gaud with great distinction, as 
was becoming a pretty young lady whose visit was 
an honor to the family. 

They took her up by a stairway of white wood, 
which was quite new, into that upper room which 
was the glory of the house. She remembered 
well the history of the building of this upper 
story; it all came from the salvage of an aban¬ 
doned wreck which Father Gaos and his cousin the 
pilot had found in the Channel. Yann had told 
her all about it the night of the ball. This room 
which the wreck had paid for was very pretty 
and cheerful in its coat of fresh white paint. 
There were two beds in it arranged in city fashion, 
with curtains of pink chintz and a large table in 
the middle of the room. From the window there 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 87 

was a view over the whole of Paimpol, and all the 
roadstead, with the Iceland fishing-boats drawn 
up at anchor, and the Channel, through which 
they put out to sea. 

She did not dare to ask, but she would have so 
much liked to know where Yann slept; probably 
when he was a child he must have occupied one 
of those old beds in the presses downstairs. But 
now perhaps it was here under these pretty pink 
curtains. She would have so liked to know all 
about each little detail of his life, and what he did 
during the long winter evenings. 

A rather heavy step on the stairway made her 
tremble. No, it was not Yann, but a man who 
was very much like him in spite of his white hair, 
and almost as tall and as straight as he, — Father 
Gaos coming home from fishing. 

After he had greeted her, and found out the 
object of her visit, he made out the receipt, 
which was a somewhat lengthy operation; for his 
hand, he said, was no longer very steady. How¬ 
ever, he did not accept the hundred francs as a 
definite payment, as a full discharge of his dues for 
the sale of the ship. No, it was only on account; 
he would talk with M. M£vel again about it. At 
this, Gaud, who cared little about money, smiled 
a scarcely perceptible smile. “ So much the bet¬ 
ter,” she thought; “ this is not the end of it, 
then.” She never supposed it would be; and it 
was sure to make more business with the Gaos 
household, which would have to be arranged. 


88 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


They almost made excuses for Yann’s absence, 
as if it would have been more polite if all the 
family had been there to receive her. The father 
had perhaps suspected, with the sagacity of an 
old mariner, that his son was not entirely indiffer¬ 
ent to the pretty heiress, for he brought the con¬ 
versation back to him quite pointedly. 

“ It’s very strange,” he said ; “ he hardly ever 
stays out so late. He has gone to Loguivy, Ma¬ 
demoiselle Gaud, to buy lobster-pots. You know 
lobsters are what we catch mostly in winter-time.” 

And she, absent and distracted, prolonged her 
visit, although she felt she was staying too long; 
while her heart sank more and more at the thought 
that she really was not going to see him. 

“ A good boy like him ! What on earth can he 
be doing? He is not at a tavern, that’s sure. 
We have never had that to fear with our son. We 
don’t say but that once in a while, on a Sunday 
with his friends — but then you know what sailors 
are, Mademoiselle Gaud ; and then, dear me, when 
one is young, there is no use depriving one’s self 
of everything. But it is a very rare thing with 
him ; he is a right good fellow, we can assure you.” 

But still the night was coming on. They had 
folded up the oilskins and stopped work. The 
little Gaos and the little adopted child were sit¬ 
ting close together on the benches, somewhat 
subdued by the gray twilight hour, and looking 
wonderingly at Gaud, as much as to say, “And 
now why does n’t she go home ? ” And in the 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 89 

chimney the fire began to burn up red in the twi¬ 
light. “ You must stay and take supper with 
us, Mademoiselle Gaud.” Oh, no, she could 
not. The blood mounted into her cheeks at the 
thought that she had stayed so long, and she rose 
and took her leave. 

Father Gaos rose also to accompany her part 
of the way home, as far as a certain lonely hollow, 
where the old trees made the path very dark. 

While they were walking so, side by side, Gaud 
felt a great respect and tenderness for him rise 
in her heart, and an impulse came to her to speak 
to him of her trouble as she would to a father; 
but the words stuck in her throat, and she could 
say nothing. 

They were walking along in the cool evening 
breeze, which smelt of the sea, passing here and 
there, scattered over the land, little cottages al¬ 
ready shut up for the night, looking very gloomy 
under their low roofs, these poor nests to shelter 
fishermen; and they also passed crosses placed 
here and there among the furze and the rocks. 
How far away Pors-Even was, and how late it 
had grown ! 

Once in a while they passed people coming 
back from Paimpol or Loguivy. As Gaud saw 
these human silhouettes approaching, she thought 
each time that it was Yann ; but it was easy to 
recognize him, and she was quickly undeceived. 
Her feet tripped in the trailing brown plants 
growing along the ground, which was the seaweed 


9 ° 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


matted like hair. At the cross of Plouezoc’h she 
bade the old man good-by, and begged him to 
return. 

She could already see the lights of Paimpol, 
and there was no longer any need to be afraid. 
So it was all over for this time; and now who 
knew when she should see Yann again? 

She could find plenty of excuses to go to Pors- 
Even; but that would hardly do. It certainly 
would not look well for her to go there again. 
She could never be as bold as that. If only her 
little confidant Sylvestre were still here, she might 
have sent him to find Yann, and to get him to 
explain himself. But he was gone, and no one 
knew for how long. 


CHAPTER IV. 

“Get married?” said Yann to his parents 
that evening. “ Dear me ! what for ? Am I not 
happy enough here with you all? No bother, 
no quarrels, with anybody, and good hot soup 
every evening when I get home from fishing. Oh, 
yes ! I know all about who has been here in the 
house to-day. In the first place, I don’t see why 
so rich a girl can want to have anything to do 
with poor people like us. And then I have made 
up my mind not to marry her or anybody else; 
it’s not my idea.” 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 91 

The two old people looked at each other in 
silence, deeply disappointed ; for they had talked 
it over together, and had decided that this young 
girl would not refuse their handsome Yann. But 
they did not attempt to urge it, knowing that it 
would be quite useless. His mother especially 
hung her head and said nothing at all. She al¬ 
ways regarded the wishes of her eldest son, who 
had almost the position of head of the family. 
Although he was always very gentle and kind to 
her, and more submissive than a child in the small 
affairs of life, he had long been his own master 
in large matters, and replied to all efforts at com¬ 
pulsion with a quietly indomitable independence. 

He never stayed up late, having the habit of 
all fishermen of rising before daybreak. So after 
supper, about eight o’clock, having cast a last 
look of satisfaction at his lobster-pots and his 
new fishing-nets, he began to undress with a 
mind apparently entirely at ease. Then he went 
up to bed under the pink curtains, in the room 
which he shared with his little brother Laumec. 


CHAPTER V. 

For the last fortnight Gaud’s little confidant 
Sylvestre had been at headquarters in Brest,—very 
homesick, but very good. Putting on great airs 
with his wide blue collar and his red tufted cap, 



92 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


he was a splendid-looking sailor, with his rolling 
gait and his tall figure; but in his heart he was 
mourning for his good old grandmother, and was 
the same innocent child as of yore. Once only 
he went on a spree, and that was with his own 
town’s people, because it was the custom; and 
they all came rolling home together arm in arm 
to the barracks, singing at the top of their 
voices. 

One Sunday, too, he went to the theatre, in the 
top gallery. They were playing one of those 
great nautical dramas where the sailors, enraged 
with the traitor, greet him with a hou , which 
they all give together, and which makes a deep 
sound like the west wind. He found it very 
warm, as there was little air in the place, and 
when he tried to take off his jacket he was repri¬ 
manded by an officer of the theatre, and toward 
the end he fell asleep. 

As he went back to his barracks after midnight, 
he met several women of sufficiently mature age, 
with their hair very fashionably dressed, who were 
strolling up and down the sidewalks. 

“See here, pretty boy,” they said with their 
deep, harsh voices. 

He understood at once what it was they wanted, 
not being quite as green as one might have 
thought. , 

But the quick remembrance of his old grand¬ 
mother and Marie Gaos made him pass them by 
very contemptuously, looking down on them from 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 93 

the height of his youth and good looks with a 
glance of childish scorn. 

They were very much astonished, these charm¬ 
ing fair ones, to find this sailor so reserved. 

“ Did you ever see anybody like him ? Look 
out for yourself, my boy. Run away quickly; 
we are going to eat you up.” 

And the sound of the shameful things they 
called after him was lost in the indefinite rumble 
which filled the streets on this Sunday night; and 
he remained just the same at Brest as he had 
been in Iceland on the open sea, — quite inno¬ 
cent and pure. But his comrades made no fun 
of him, because of his strength, — a quality which 
always inspires respect among sailors. 


CHAPTER VI. 

One day Sylvestre was called to the office of his 
company, and informed that he had been assigned 
to service in China with the squadron off Formosa. 
He had felt for some time that it would turn out 
so, and he had heard people who read the papers 
say that the war would never finish out there. 
As they were to go almost immediately, they in¬ 
formed him at the same time that the leave of 
absence for good-byes which is usually given to 
those about to start for the seat of war, would 



94 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


in this case not be granted. In five days he would 
have to pack up and be off. 

He was much excited and disturbed at the 
news. The charm of the long journey, the pros¬ 
pect of seeing new countries, and the thought of 
war, mingled with the pain of leaving everything 
dear, and the vague presentiment that he should 
never return, almost confused him. 

A thousand thoughts whirled in his brain. 
There was a great noise around him in the hall 
of the building which was used as headquarters, 
where a number of others had also just been told 
of their assignment to this Chinese squadron. 

And then he immediately set about writing to 
his poor old grandmother as quickly as he could, 
with a pencil, sitting on the ground lost in trou¬ 
bled thought in the midst of the coming and go¬ 
ing and the noise of the young men who like 
himself were also going away. 


CHAPTER VII. 

“ She is a little ancient, that sweetheart of his,” 
said Sylvestre’s comrades, two days after, laugh¬ 
ingly, behind his back; “ but all the same they 
seem to understand each other very well.” 

It amused them to see him walking the streets 
of Recouvrance for the first time like other peo¬ 
ple, with a woman on his arm, leaning over her 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 95 

and saying things which were doubtless very sweet 
and tender. 

She was a little person, with a rather trim figure, 
— seen from behind ; skirts a trifle short perhaps ~ 
for the prevailing fashion, a little brown shawl, and 
a great Paimpol cap. 

She hung on his arm, and looked tenderly into 
his face. 

“ She is certainly a bit old, his sweetheart! ” 

They did not mean anything very unkind when 
they said it, for they could see perfectly that she 
was a good old grandmother from the country. 

She had arrived in haste, being seized with 
fresh terror at the news of her grandson’s depart¬ 
ure for this war in China, which had already cost 
the country of Paimpol so dear. 

Having gotten together all her little savings, 
and packed her best Sunday dress and a change 
of caps in a bandbox, she had come to Brest to 
embrace him at least once more. 

She went straight to his barracks to find him, 
but the adjutant refused to let him come out, 
saying, — 

“ If you want to see him, my good woman, you 
must ask the captain; there he is just going by.” 

And ask the captain she did, and happily he 
let himself be persuaded. 

“ Send Moan to change his clothes,” he said. 

And Moan flew upstairs four steps at a time to 
put on his dress uniform; while the good old 
woman, seeing the fun of it all as usual, made an 


9 6 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

indescribable little face at the adjutant behind his 
back and dropped him a courtesy. 

Then when her grandson appeared in his new 
uniform, with its low sailor’s collar, she was 
amazed to find him so handsome. His black 
beard had been trimmed by a barber into a point, 
as was the fashion that year among sailors; the 
ruffles of his open shirt were finely plaited; and 
his sailor’s hat had long floating ribbons with gilt 
anchors on the end. 

For a moment she thought she saw her son 
Pierre, who twenty years before had also been a 
sailor in the fleet; and the remembrance of that 
time so long ago, and of all those who were dead 
and gone, cast its shadow over the present hour. 
But it was a sadness which soon disappeared. 
They walked out arm in arm, in the happiness of 
being together; and it was then that they play¬ 
fully thought of her as his sweetheart, and called 
her a “little old.” 

She took him off to dinner for a treat at an 
inn much frequented by the people of Paimpol, 
and which had been recommended to them as 
not too dear. And afterward, they walked about 
Brest, still arm in arm, looking into the shop 
windows. But nothing was as amusing as the 
funny things she said herself to make her grand¬ 
son laugh, in the Breton dialect of Paimpol, which 
the passers-by could not understand. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


97 


CHAPTER VIII. 

She stayed three days with him, — three happy 
days, in spite of the thought of that gloomy time 
to come; and they seemed almost like three days 
of grace. 

Then finally the time came for her to go, to 
return to Paimpol. In the first place, because 
she had come to the end of her poor little stock 
of money; and then Sylvestre was to sail on the 
next day but one, and sailors are inexorably shut 
up in their quarters on the eve of important ex¬ 
peditions, — a usage which seems at first sight 
a little harsh, but which is really a necessary 
precaution against sprees, on which sailors are 
tempted to go before starting off on a campaign. 

Oh, that last day ! No matter how hard she 
tried, no matter how she racked her brains for 
something new and funny to say to her grand¬ 
son, she could find nothing; no, only tears which 
would try to come, and sobs which rose choking 
in her throat. 

Hanging on his arm, she charged him with 
a thousand things which made him want to cry 
too; and they finally went into a church to say 
their prayers together. 

It was the evening train by which she was to 
return; for economy’s sake they walked to the 
7 


9 8 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


station, he carrying her bandbox and supporting 
her with his strong arm, on which she leaned 
with her whole weight. She was tired, so tired, 
the poor old woman! she was at the end of 
her strength, which she had so much overtaxed 
during the last three or four days. Her back 
was quite bent under her little brown shawl, as 
if she no longer had the strength to stand up 
straight. Her youthful step and carriage had 
quite gone, and she felt the full weight of her 
sixty years. At the idea that it was all over, and 
that in a few minutes she would have to leave 
him, the pain in her heart was almost too terrible 
to bear. And it was to China too that he was 
going, — off there to that massacre. She still had 
him there with her; she still held him with her 
two poor old hands; but nevertheless he was 
going, — not all her will, nor all her tears, nor all 
her despair could keep him. 

Embarrassed with her ticket, her basket of 
provisions, and her mittens, all agitated and 
trembling, she gave him her last charges, to which 
he replied with a little submissive “ yes,” bending 
his head tenderly over her, and looking at her 
with his sweet, honest eyes, like a little child. 

“ Come, old lady, you must make up your 
mind whether you are going or not.” 

The engine whistled. Seized with fright lest 
she should miss the train, she took her box out 
of his hands, let it fall on the ground, and finally 
hung it round her neck in helpless confusion. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


99 


People stared at them a great deal in the sta¬ 
tion; but nobody felt like laughing. Pushed 
about by the railroad officials, exhausted and 
frightened to death, she threw herself at last into 
the first compartment she came to, which they 
shut on her heels; while he, with his light sailor’s 
step, took a little turn like a bird which flies 
away, to get round to the crossing outside in 
time to see her go by. 

A loud whistle, a great noise of the wheels, and 
his grandmother went by. Leaning up against 
the gate, he waved his hat with its long floating 
ribbons, with youthful grace; while she, leaning 
out of the window of her third-class carriage, 
waved her handkerchief, the better to be recog¬ 
nized. As long as she was able, as long as she 
could make out that dark-blue figure which was 
still her grandson, she followed him with her eyes, 
sending out her whole soul to him in that always 
uncertain “ Au revoir! ” which one says to de¬ 
parting sailors. 

Look well at your little Sylvestre, poor old 
woman! Follow well to the last minute that 
diminishing figure which vanishes there forever 
from your sight! When she could really see him 
no longer, she fell back in her seat, without a 
thought of crushing her beautiful cap, sobbing 
and weeping in an agony of tears. And he went 
slowly back, head bent down, and the great tears 
rolling down his cheeks. 

The autumn night had come on; the gas was 


L oFC. 


100 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN 


lit all along the streets; and the sailors’ holiday 
had begun. Without noticing anything about 
him, he traversed Brest, then crossed the bridge 
of Recouvrance, and so back to his barracks. 

“ Look here, pretty boy ! ” the harsh voices of 
the women were already calling, as they began 
their promenade up and down the pavement. 

He went in and threw himself on his bed 
and wept there alone, hardly sleeping at all until 
morning. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Sylvestre was out in the open sea, being rap¬ 
idly borne along over unknown waters far bluer 
than those of Iceland. 

The ship, which was carrying him to the farth¬ 
est extreme of Asia, had orders to make quick 
time and to cut short her stops. 

He had already a sense of being very far away, 
on account of this hurrying speed, incessant and 
unvarying, which went on just the same almost 
without regard for wind or weather. Being ,a 
topman, he lived aloft, perched up like a bird, 
out of the way of the crowd of soldiers gathered 
together on the deck beneath. 

They stopped twice off the coast of Tunis to 
take on more zouaves and some mules; and Syl¬ 
vestre could see in the distance white cities lying 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


IOI 


on the sandy plains or up among the mountains. 
And he even came down from his perch to have a 
look at those dark-skinned men, draped in white 
garments, who came on board to sell fruit, who 
the others told him were Bedouins. 

The sun continued to pour down with undimin¬ 
ished heat in spite of the autumn season, and this 
too gave him the impression of being very, very 
far away from home. 

One day they arrived at a town called Port- 
Said, where all the flags of Europe were floating 
at the top of lofty spars and rigging, making 
it look like Babel on a holiday; and the shining 
sands surrounded it like a sea. They had dropped 
anchor at the quay, which was situated almost in 
the middle of the town, among long streets of 
wooden houses. Not since his departure had the 
outside world seemed so close to him, and he was 
much amused by all the bustle and the vast num¬ 
ber of vessels. 

With a continual shrieking of whistles and fog¬ 
horns, the ships all sailed off down a kind of 
canal, no larger than a moat, which disappeared 
like a silver line in the infinite distance of the 
desert. From the height of the maintop he could 
see them following one another along in a proces¬ 
sion, being gradually lost to sight in the distant 
plains. 

Moving about the quays were men in all kinds 
of costumes and of every possible color, shouting 
and hurrying about in the rattle and roar of all 


102 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


that was going on, and in the evening, to the dia¬ 
bolical noise of the steam whistle was added the 
confused sound of several bands, playing noisy 
tunes, as if to drown the poignant regrets of all the 
many exiled from home who were passing by. 

The day after, at sunrise they too sailed into 
this narrow ribbon of water among the sands, 
followed by a train of ships of every country. 
This promenade in single file through the desert 
lasted two days; then another ocean opened up 
before them, and they took to the open sea again. 
They went at full speed always; and this still 
warmer ocean was scattered over with dissolving 
red designs, and sometimes the foam in the wake 
of the ship was the color of blood. Sylvestre 
lived aloft almost all the time, and sang “Jean 
Francois de Nantes ” quite low to himself, to re¬ 
mind him of his brother Yann, of Iceland, and of 
the good old times. 

Sometimes in the depth of the distances, which 
were full of mirages, he would see a mountain of 
an extraordinary color looming up. Those who 
were in command of the ship doubtless recog¬ 
nized in spite of distance and indistinctness these 
headlands which the continents push out, like 
eternal guide-posts on the great thoroughfares 
of the world; but a sailor journeys along, car¬ 
ried about like a piece of luggage, knowing noth¬ 
ing, paying little attention to distances and meas¬ 
ures of space which have no end for him. 

As for Sylvestre, he was only conscious that he 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


103 


was getting terribly far away; and he knew that 
well enough from looking down at the wake of the 
ship, which was rushing rapidly along, and count¬ 
ing how long that speed which slackened neither 
by night nor by day had continued. The crowd 
of men huddled below on deck under the shadow 
of their tents were painfully oppressed for breath. 
The water, the air, the light, had all taken on a 
terrible overpowering splendor; and this contin¬ 
ual glorification of inanimate things was a mock- 
ery to the living beings, the organized existences 
which are but mortal. Once from his perch he 
watched with much interest clouds of little birds 
of a kind unknown to him, which threw them¬ 
selves on the ship like whirlwinds of black dust. 
They let themselves be caught and petted, being 
too exhausted to resist; and all the sailors had 
some on their shoulders. 

But soon the most exhausted of them began 
to die. They perished by thousands on the yards, 
in the port-holes, — the poor little things ! — 
under the fierce sun of the Red Sea. 

These birds had come from over the great 
desert, driven by the tempest, and for fear of fall¬ 
ing into the infinite blue which spread everywhere 
around, they flocked down, exhausted, with the 
last strength of their wings, upon the vessel which 
was passing by. Over there in some far region 
of Libya they had multiplied too exuberantly, — 
had multiplied without measure, and there were 
too many of them; so that blind and soulless 


104 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 

Mother Nature had driven this excess of little 
birds away with a breath, with the same impas¬ 
sive indifference with which she treats a genera¬ 
tion of men. 

They all perished on the heated iron-work of 
the ship; and the deck was heaped up with their 
little bodies, which yesterday were throbbing 
with life and love and song. They looked like 
little black rags, with their wet feathers; and Syl- 
vestre and the other sailors gathered them up in 
their hands, compassionately spreading out their 
delicate bluish wings, and then swept them off 
into the sea and made an end of them. 

Then came swarms of grasshoppers, descend¬ 
ants of those of the time of Moses; and the ship 
was covered with them. 

Then they sailed on several days more in the 
unchanging blue, and saw no other living thing 
except a few fishes flying over the surface of the 
waters. 


CHAPTER X. 

Rain in torrents under a perfectly black and 
heavy sky, — that was India. Sylvestre had just 
landed there, as it had happened that he was 
chosen to be one of the crew of a small boat 
sent on shore for supplies. 

The warm shower fell on him through the thick 
foliage as he looked about him at the strange 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 105 

country. Everything was magnificently green ; the 
leaves of the trees looked like gigantic feathers, 
and the people who walked by had great velvet 
eyes which seemed to droop under the weight of 
their lashes; and the breeze which blew the rain 
about smelt of musk and of roses. Women beck¬ 
oned to him, making signs which meant some¬ 
thing like the “ See here, pretty boy ! ” which he 
had heard so many times in Brest. But here in 
this enchanted land the invitation excited and 
thrilled him. Their superb figures could be seen 
outlined under their transparent muslin draper¬ 
ies ; and their skins were tawny and polished like 
bronze. 

Hesitating and yet fascinated, he was beginning 
nevertheless to follow them step by step, when all 
at once he heard the pipe of the boatswain’s 
whistle, trilling like a bird, calling him quickly 
back to his boat, which was leaving. 

So he went on his way and bade adieu to the 
beauties of India. 

Still another week on the blue sea, and they 
stopped at another land of greenness and mois¬ 
ture. A crowd of little yellow men, shouting and 
yelling like madmen, suddenly invaded the ship, 
bringing coal in baskets. 

“Are we in China already?” asked Sylvestre, 
seeing that they all had monkey faces and pig¬ 
tails. 

They said “ no ; ” he must wait a little longer. 
This was only Singapore. He went up aloft 


106 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

again, to get out of the black dust which the 
wind blew about, while the coal from these thou¬ 
sand little baskets was being hurriedly thrown 
into the bunkers. 

Finally one day they came to a country called 
Tourane, where they found at anchor a ship 
called the “ Circe,” which was blockading the har¬ 
bor. It was the ship to which he had known he 
should be changed; and they put him on board 
with his bag. 

He found countrymen among the crew, even 
two “ Icelanders,” who for the time being were 
serving as gunners. 

In the evening, in that warm and quiet climate, 
where there is nothing whatever to do, they would 
assemble on deck in a group apart, away from the 
others, making a little Brittany among themselves. 
He had to pass five months of idleness and exile 
in this desolate bay, before the long-wished-for 
moment arrived for going into action. 


CHAPTER XI. 

Paimpol, the last day of February, and the 
evening before the departure of the fishermen for 
Iceland. Gaud was leaning up against the door 
of her room, motionless and very pale. 

It was because Yann was downstairs, talking 
with her father. She had seen him come, and 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 107 

she could hear indistinctly the sound of his 
voice. 

They had not met the whole winter; some fatal¬ 
ity seemed always to keep them apart. After her 
journey to Pors-Even, she had built her hopes some¬ 
what on the “ Pardon ” of the Icelanders, where 
there are many opportunities to meet and talk, 
in the market-place at evening among the various 
groups that stand around. But on the morning 
of the festival, after the streets had been hung 
with their white drapery and green garlands, a 
wretched rain began to pour down in torrents, 
driven from the west by a sobbing wind. So 
black a sky never had been seen over Paimpol. 
“ Nobody will come from Ploubazlanec, that’s 
sure,” sadly exclaimed the girls whose sweethearts 
lived there. And come in fact they did not, or 
if they did, they took refuge immediately in the 
wine-shops. There was no procession, and no 
walking about; and Gaud, with her heart more sad 
and oppressed than ever, sat behind her window 
all the evening, listening to the water trickling off 
the roofs, or to the noisy songs of the fishermen 
issuing from the wine-shops. 

She had been expecting this visit of Yann for 
several days, strongly suspecting that Father Gaos, 
who did not like coming to Paimpol, would send 
his son to see about the ship business which was 
not yet settled. And she had resolved to go and 
speak to him, although she knew it was not what 
girls usually did, to talk to him frankly and get 


io8 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


the matter off her mind. She would reproach 
him for having taken her up and then leaving 
her, as if he had no heart. 

Obstinacy, rudeness, love of his seafaring life, 
or fear of being refused, if tnese obstacles indi¬ 
cated by Sylvestre were the only ones, they might 
be overcome, — why not ? — after a frank conver¬ 
sation such as theirs would be. And then per¬ 
haps that pleasant smile would appear again, 
which would make everything right, — that same 
smile which had so surprised and charmed her 
during that night of the ball which she had spent 
waltzing in his arms; and this hope gave her 
courage and filled her heart with an almost gentle 
patience. 

It always seemed so easy when it was in the 
future, so simple a thing to say and do. 

And this visit of Yann happened very conve¬ 
niently ; she was sure that her father, who had just 
sat down to smoke, would not trouble himself to 
see him to the door; and then in the hall, where 
there would be nobody to disturb them, she could 
finally have her explanation with him. 

But when the moment had really come, it 
seemed a terribly bold thing to do. The mere 
idea of meeting him, of seeing him face to face 
at the foot of the stairs, made her tremble. Her 
heart was beating as if it would burst, — and to 
think that at any moment that door down there 
might open, with the little creak she knew so well, 
to let him pass ! 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. IO9 

No, surely she would never dare to do it, rather 
would she eat her heart out in suspense and grief 
than attempt such a thing. She had already 
taken several steps to go back into the retirement 
of her own room to sit down and take up her 
work. Then she stopped again, hesitating in dis¬ 
may at the thought that to-morrow was the day 
of the fishermen’s departure for Iceland, and that 
this was the one and only chance she would have 
to speak to him. If she missed this, she would 
have to begin all over again those months of soli¬ 
tary waiting and longing for his return, and lose 
one whole summer more out of her life. 

The door opened downstairs, and Yann came 
out. With a sudden resolution, she ran down 
the staircase, and stood trembling before him. 

“ Monsieur Yann, I would like to speak to you, 
if you please.” 

“Tome, Mademoiselle Gaud?” said he, lower¬ 
ing his voice and touching his hat. 

He looked at her somewhat defiantly out of his 
brilliant eyes, with his head thrown back, and a 
stern hard look came over his face, as if he hesi¬ 
tated whether to stop at all. With one foot in 
advance, ready to escape, he set his great shoub 
ders against the wall, as if to get as far off from 
her as possible in the narrow passage where he 
had been caught. 

Then, chilled by his manner, she could think 
of none of the things she had prepared to say to 
him j she had not thought that he could be so 


I 10 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


rude to her as to go by without being willing to 
listen to her. 

“ Does our house frighten you, Monsieur 
Yann? ” she asked in a strange hard voice, which 
was far different from the tone she had wished to 
use. 

He turned his eyes away, and looked outside. 
His cheeks had become quite red, with a burning 
blush; and his expressive nostrils, dilating at each 
breath, followed the heaving of his chest, like a 
bull. 

She tried to go on. 

“ The evening of the ball when we were 
together you bade me 1 Au revoir * as if I was not 
quite indifferent to you. Monsieur Yann, you 
have forgotten, then. What have I done to 
you? ” 

The gusty west wind blew into the hall from 
the street, ruffled Yann’s hair and the wings of 
Gaud’s cap, and banged a door furiously behind 
them. This corridor was not a good place for 
discussing serious matters. After the first sen¬ 
tence, which choked in her throat, Gaud became 
quite mute, and turned away her head, unable to 
think of anything more. 

They had gotten nearer the street door, he 
trying always to escape. 

Outside, the wind was roaring loudly, and the 
sky was dark and lowering. A cold livid light 
fell full on their faces through the open door, 
and a neighbor looked in at them, thinking, 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 111 

“What can they be saying, those two, there in 
the passage, looking so disturbed ? What can be 
happening at the M6vels’?” 

“ No, Mademoiselle Gaud/’ he replied at last, 
evading her with the quickness of an untamed 
animal. “ I *ve already heard people talking 
about us in the country. No, Mademoiselle 
Gaud, you are rich. We don’t belong to the same 
kind of people; I am not the fellow to run after 
you, — no, not I.” 

And with that he was gone. So this was the 
end of it all; it was all over forever. She had 
said nothing that she had meant to in this inter¬ 
view which had only served to make her appear 
bold and unwomanly in his eyes. What a 
fellow he was, this Yann, with his contempt of 
women, of money, of everything ! 

She remained fixed to the spot, while every¬ 
thing whirled dizzily around her. 

And then suddenly another thought struck her, 
more intolerable than all the rest. These friends 
of Yann, these Icelanders who were strolling up 
and down the market-place, waiting for him, — 
suppose he should tell them about it and make 
fun of her ! She ran up into her room again, to 
watch them from behind the curtains. 

There was, in fact, a group of these men before 
the house. But they were merely watching the 
sky, which was becoming blacker and blacker all 
the time, and making conjectures about the heavy 
rain which threatened, saying, “ It will only be 


I 12 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


a shower. Let us go in and take a drink; it will 
soon be over.” 

Then they began to make jokes in a loud voice 
about Jeannie Caroff and various other girls ; but 
nobody even looked toward her window. 

They were all in good spirits, except Yann, 
who made no reply to their jokes, but remained 
quite grave and sad. He did not go in to drink 
with the others, but without noticing either them 
or the rain which was beginning to fall, he walked 
slowly away under the steady down-pour, as if 
lost in thought, crossing the market-place in the 
direction of Ploubazlanec. 

And then she forgave him everything, and a 
feeling of hopeless tenderness took the place of 
the bitter anger which had first risen in her heart. 

She sat down with her head in her hands. 
What could she do now? 

Oh, if he only would have listened to her for 
one moment, if he would have gone with her into 
some room where they could have talked in peace 
alone together, everything might still have been 
explained ! 

She loved him enough to have dared to con¬ 
fess it to his face; she would have said, “ You 
sought me out when I cared nothing for you; 
now I am yours with my whole soul, if you want 
me. See, I am not afraid of being the wife of a 
fisherman, and besides, I have only to choose, if 
I want a husband, among all the young men of 
Paimpol. But I love you, because in spite of 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 113 

everything, I think you are better than the others. 
I am not quite poor; I know that I am pretty; 
and although I have lived in the city, I assure 
you that I am not a bad girl, and have never done 
anything very wrong. Now, when I love you so, 
why will you not take me?” 

But all that would never be said, never except 
in fancy. It was too late ; Yann would never lis¬ 
ten to her. Try to speak to him a second time ? 
Oh, never ! What kind of a creature would he 
take her for? No ! she would rather die. 

And to-morrow they were going off to Iceland. 

Alone in her pretty room, in the cold white 
light of the February twilight, shivering in a chair 
by the wall on which she had thrown herself by 
chance, it seemed to her that the world was 
crumbling away from under her, together with all 
things present and to come, into a hopeless ter¬ 
rible abyss which was opening about her. She 
longed to be done with life, to be quietly asleep 
in her grave, to suffer no more ! But truly she 
forgave him; and no bitterness mingled with her 
despairing love for him. 


CHAPTER XII. 

The sea, the dull, gray sea. 

Over that trackless way which leads the fisher¬ 
man each year to Iceland Yann had been quietly 
8 



114 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 

sailing for a day past. The evening before, when 
they had all departed, to the chant of the old 
hymns, a southerly wind was blowing; and the 
ships, with all sails set, had scattered far and wide 
like sea-gulls. 

Then the breeze had died out; their pace be¬ 
came slower; and banks of fog began to travel 
low down over the surface of the sea. 

Yann was a little more silent than usual per¬ 
haps. The calm weather oppressed him; he 
seemed to feel the need of action to chase away 
some preoccupation from his mind. But there 
was nothing to do but just to glide quietly along 
over the smooth waters, — nothing but just to 
breathe and exist. There was nothing to be seen 
but mysterious depths of enveloping gray fog, 
nothing to be heard but silence. 

All of a sudden a dull sound struck upon 
the stillness, — a scarcely perceptible, but unusual 
sound, and one that came from below with a 
scraping sensation, as when one puts the brake 
on a carriage ; and the “ Marie ” suddenly stopped 
dead. 

‘‘Aground ! where, and on what? ” 

Some sand-bank on the English coast probably; 
but they had seen nothing since the evening 
before, on account of these curtains of fog. 

The crew ran hurriedly about, their excited 
movements contrasting strongly with the sudden 
and rigid immovability of their boat. There the 
“ Marie ” was, stuck and unable to budge ! In 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 115 

the midst of this great watery world which in the 
muggy soft weather seemed to have scarcely any 
consistency at all, she had been caught by some¬ 
thing unknown, but immovable and resisting, 
hidden under the water. She was caught fast, 
and was even in danger of being lost. 

Who has not seen a poor bird or fly caught by 
its feet in bird-lime ? At first it scarcely perceives 
it, and one notices no change; it must first dis¬ 
cover that its feet are stuck in something and 
that it is in danger of never getting out of it. It 
is then that it begins to struggle, that the sticky 
substance begins to soil its wings and head; and 
then it takes on little by little that pitiful look of 
a thing in distress and near to death. 

It was so with the “ Marie ; ” in the beginning it 
did not seem to make much difference with her. 
She lay over a little to one side, it was true; but 
it was in the middle of the forenoon on a beautiful 
calm day, and one had to know what had hap¬ 
pened to be at all disturbed, or to understand 
that there was anything in particular the matter. 

It was almost pitiful to see the captain, whose 
fault it was, in not paying enough attention to 
where they were, as he kept wringing his hands 
and crying, “ Ma Doud ! ma Doud ! ” in a tone 
of despair. 

Quite near them, as the fog lifted, they saw the 
outline of a cape which they did not recognize; 
and then the fog settled down again, and they 
could see it no longer. 


116 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

Otherwise, there was nothing to be seen, — not 
a sail or a sign of smoke. For the present they 
were almost glad of it; they were much afraid of 
the English wreckers, who would come to get 
them out of their trouble after their own fashion, 
and who are almost as bad as pirates. 

They tried everything, shifting and changing 
the ballast. Turk, the dog, who was not in the 
least afraid of any motion of the vessel at sea, 
was very much disturbed by the affair. These 
noises from below, these rough shocks when the 
swell passed under, and then this stoppage ! — he 
understood perfectly well that it was something 
that was not natural, and hid himself in corners 
with his tail between his legs. 

Then they got out the small boats, dropped 
anchor, and pulled with their united force on the 
hawsers, trying to haul her off, — a toilsome expe¬ 
dient which they tried for ten hours at a stretch. 
By evening the poor boat, which had come up so 
fresh and clean in the morning, was already in a 
sorry plight, flooded and dirty and in utter dis¬ 
order. She had struggled and beaten herself, 
trying in every way to shake herself free, and still 
she stuck fast like a lifeless hulk. 

The night was closing over them, the wind was 
rising, and the seas were rolling higher; the pros¬ 
pect was getting worse and worse, when all at 
once, about six o’clock, they suddenly slid off the 
banks, breaking all the hawsers which had been 
stretched to hold them in position as they went. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 11 7 

And then the whole crew were to be seen 
running up and down the deck like madmen, 
shouting, — 

“ We are afloat! ” 

They were off indeed, and what words could 
express the joy of it! To feel themselves moving, 
and the boat becoming alive and light again, in¬ 
stead of being nearly a wreck, as they were but a 
short time ago ! 

Yann’s sadness left him at the same moment. 
Relieved, like his boat, cured by the healthy labor 
of his arms, he regained his careless air and shook 
off his troublesome memories. 

The morning after, when they had finished fish¬ 
ing up their anchors, he went on his way toward 
the frigid north with a heart apparently as free as 
in former years. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

Off there, on board the “ Circe ” in the harbor 
of D’ Ha-Long, at the other end of the world, a 
French mail was being distributed. In the mid¬ 
dle of a group of sailors, who were crowding 
around him, the purser was loudly calling out the 
names of the fortunate ones for whom there were 
letters. 

It was in the evening, on the gun-deck, and they 
pushed and shoved one another around the ship’s 
lantern. 



II8 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

“ Moan, Sylvestre.” There was one for him, 
— one which was postmarked Paimpol clearly 
enough, but was not in Gaud’s writing. What 
did that mean, and who was it from? 

He turned it over and over and opened it al¬ 
most timidly. 

Ploubazlanec, March 5, 1884. 

My dear Grandson,— 

It was from his good old grandmother; he 
breathed more freely. At the end she had even 
scrawled her name, the only thing she could write, 
in big, shaky letters like a school-boy’s, — “ Widow 
Moan.” “Widow Moan,” — he raised the paper 
to his lips with an unconscious gesture, and kissed 
the poor name as if it were some sacred charm. 
The letter had come at the supreme hour of his 
life; to-morrow morning, at daybreak, he would 
be under fire. 

It was in the middle of April; Bac-Ninh and 
Hong-Koa had just been taken. There was 
nothing important in prospect in Tonkin; never¬ 
theless, the reinforcements which kept arriving 
were not considered sufficient; so they took 
from on board the ships all the men who could 
be spared, to complete the companies of marines 
that had already been landed. And Sylvestre, 
who had long pined in the blockading squadron, 
had been chosen among others to fill up the ranks 
of one of these companies. 

At the moment, it is true, they were talking of 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 119 

peace ; but something told them, nevertheless, that 
they would still land in time to do a little fighting. 
Having packed their knapsacks, finished their 
preparations, and said their good-byes, they 
walked up and down the whole evening among 
those who stayed behind, feeling very proud and 
important beside them. Each one showed his 
feelings about going in his own way; some were 
grave and a little reserved, and some chattered 
noisily in the highest spirits. 

As for Sylvestre, he was quite silent, and kept 
his impatience to himself; only if one looked at 
him, a little reserved smile said plainly, “ Oh, yes, 
I am here; and to-morrow morning’s the time.” 
Of war and of battle he had as yet but an in¬ 
complete notion, but the idea of it fascinated him, 
as he came of a brave race. 

Uneasy about Gaud, on account of the strange 
writing, he tried to find a lantern by which to read 
his letter. 

It was a difficult matter among these groups of 
half-naked men, who were crowding him there, 
trying also to read their letters in the stifling heat 
of the gun-deck. 

At the end of the letter, as he had expected, 
Grandmother Yvonne explained why she had 
been obliged to have recourse to the less practised 
hand of an old neighbor. 

My dear Child, — Your cousin is not writing 
this for me this time, for she is in great trouble. 
Her father died suddenly two days ago, and it ap- 


120 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


pears that his fortune had been entirely eaten up by 
his unfortunate speculations last winter in Paris. 
The house and furniture are to be sold. It is a thing 
nobody in the country expected ever to see ; and I 
am sure, dear child, that it will be as great a grief to 
you as it is to me. 

Young Gaos sends his regards to you ; he has re¬ 
engaged with Captain Guermeur on the “ Marie,” as 
usual, and they left for Iceland quite early this sea¬ 
son. They set sail on the first day of this month, 
the evening before the great misfortune which befell 
our poor Gaud, and they know nothing about it yet. 
And so you will understand, my dear son, that it is 
all over now ; we will never see them married, for 
now she will have to work to earn her bread. 

He stopped aghast. The bad news had spoiled 
all his pleasure in going into battle. 




PART III. 


CHAPTER I. 



BULLET whistling through the air! 
Sylvestre stopped short and listened. 
It was on a wide plain, all green and 
velvety with spring, under a gray and 
overhanging sky. 

There were six armed sailors there, on a muddy 
path in a ricefield, reconnoitring. 

Again ! the same sound in the still air, — a 
sharp, humming sound, a kind of prolonged 
dzinn , — giving one a very good impression of 
what kind of a hard, wicked little thing it was 
which flew past so quickly and so straight, and 
which might bring death with it. 

For the first time in his life Sylvestre heard 
that music. Those shots which come toward 
you have a very different sound from those you 
fire yourself. The report of the gun at a great 
distance comes so faint as scarcely to be distin¬ 
guished ; but the little whizzing sound of the 












122 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


bullet as it flies toward you, grazing your ears, 
can be heard very clearly. 

And dzinn again, and dzinn. There was a 
shower of bullets now all around the sailors, who 
had stopped short. The balls buried themselves 
in the wet soil of the ricefields, as they fell with 
a little quick, sharp sound, like hail, and with a. 
slight splash of water. 

They looked at one another and smiled as if it 
were an amusing farce, and said, — 

“ The Chinamen ” (to sailors Annamites, Ton- 
kinois, Pavillons-noirs, are all Chinamen). 

And how their disdain, and the old, contemp¬ 
tuous grudge, and desire to fight them came out 
in the way they cried, “ The Chinamen ” ! 

Two or three more balls whistled by, lower 
down this time; they could see them bounding 
along like grasshoppers in the grass. The rain 
of bullets had scarcely lasted a minute; and it 
had already stopped. Over the great green plain 
dead silence came again; and they could see 
nothing stirring anywhere. 

They stood up straight, all six, with watchful 
eyes, scenting the breeze, trying to discover where 
the shots could have come from. 

From over there, surely, from that clump of 
bamboos, standing up in the midst of the plain 
like a little island of feathers, behind which, half- 
concealed, appeared the horned roofs of some 
huts. So they ran in that direction, their feet 
sinking and slipping in the wet soil of the rice- 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 123 

field; and Sylvestre, whose legs were longer and 
who ran quicker than the others, was the one who 
was ahead. 

No whizzing sound now; they almost thought 
they had been dreaming. And as in all the coun¬ 
tries of the world some things are always the 
same, — the gray of the lowering skies, the fresh 
green of the meadows in spring, —you would 
almost have thought you saw the fields of France, 
and that these young men running along were 
playing at some other game than that of death. 

But the nearer they got, the more clearly ap¬ 
peared the fine exotic foliage of the bamboo-trees, 
the strange curves of the village roofs, and the 
yellow men lying in ambush, their flat faces con¬ 
tracted with fear and hate, who with a yell de¬ 
ployed out into a long irregular line, which still 
looked steady and dangerous enough. 

“ The Chinamen,” said the sailors again, with 
the same brave smile. 

All the same, they found there were enough of 
them, — too many, in fact; and one of their 
number, turning around, saw others coming from 
behind, out of the grass. 

How handsome he was, our little Sylvestre, 
that moment on that day ! His old grandmother 
would have been proud to see him so warlike and 
so brave. Two or three days had transformed 
him quite, and with his bronzed face and altered 
voice he seemed to be in his own proper element. 
For one moment, while bullets were flying about 


124 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

them in every direction, they wavered, and had 
already begun the retreat, which would have 
meant death for every one of them. 

Sylvestre, however, continued to advance, and 
taking his gun by the barrel, kept a whole group 
of the enemy at bay, sweeping his weapon from 
right to left with tremendous blows, which would 
have felled an ox; and thanks to him, the for¬ 
tune of the day was changed; the panic, the 
terror, the something which decides blindly in all 
such little undirected skirmishes, took possession 
of the Chinese, and it was they who began to fall 
back. 

It was over now. They were flying, and the 
six sailors, having rapidly reloaded, picked them 
off at their ease ; and there were red stains in the 
grass, and fallen bodies and split skulls, with brains 
oozing out into the water of the field. 

They ran, bent double and close to the ground, 
flattening themselves down like leopards; and 
Sylvestre ran after them, already wounded twice, 
with a spear-thrust in his thigh and a deep gash 
in his arm, but feeling nothing but the intoxi¬ 
cation of battle, — that unreasoning frenzy of hot 
young blood which gives to simple men the su¬ 
perb courage of ancient heroes. 

He whom he was pursuing turned around all 
at once to aim at him, with a sudden impulse 
of desperate fright; and Sylvestre stopped, smil¬ 
ing, contemptuous, and sublime, waiting for him 
to shoot, then threw himself to one side, seeing 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN ,. 


I2 5 


the direction of his aim, but with the movement 
of the trigger, the muzzle of the gun swerved in 
the same direction, and then Sylvestre, feeling a 
shock in his breast, and understanding well what 
it was by intuition, turned around, even with all 
the pain, toward the other sailors, who were fol¬ 
lowing him, trying to say like an old soldier the 
sacred phrase, “ I think I’m done for.” 

With the deep breath that he was drawing, as 
he ran, to fill his lungs, he felt the air come in 
also through a hole in his breast, with a horrible 
little sound like that of a broken bellows; at the 
same moment his mouth filled with blood, and he 
felt a sharp pain in his side, which rapidly grew 
worse until it became frightful agony. 

He turned dizzily around two or three times, 
trying to get his breath through all this red liquid 
which rose and choked him, and then fell heavily 
over in the mud. 


CHAPTER II. 

About a fortnight afterward, as the weather 
was already darkening, — for the rainy season and 
the heat had become more oppressive than ever 
in yellow Tonkin, — Sylvestre, whom they had 
brought to Hanoi, was sent by way of the port of 
D’Ha-Long to be put on board a hospital trans¬ 
port which was returning to France. 



126 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


He had been carried about for a long time on 
various stretchers between ambulance stations. 
Everything possible had been done for him; but 
under the unfavorable conditions, his lungs had 
filled with water on the wounded side, and air 
kept coming in with a little bubbling sound 
through the hole which would not close. 

He had been awarded the military medal, and 
that had given him a moment’s pleasure. 

But he was no longer the soldier he had been, 
with his courageous air and his deep strong voice. 
No, all that had passed away with the prolonged 
suffering and the exhausting fever. He had be¬ 
come a homesick child again; he scarcely spoke, 
and replied only to questions in a weak, soft voice 
which could scarcely be heard. To feel himself 
so ill, and so far, so very far away, to think of the 
days and days it would take before he could get 
home, — if he could only live till then, — but he 
was growing so weak ! 

This feeling of being terribly far away was a 
thing which constantly haunted him and disturbed 
his dreams; and when after hours of torpor he 
felt again the terrible pain of his wounds, the 
burning of the fever, and the little wheezing 
sound of his pierced lung, then it was that he 
begged to be put on board and sent home at any 
risk. He was very heavy to lift in his cot, and 
in spite of their best endeavors, he was terribly 
shaken while he was being carried. Once on 
board the transport, which was on the point of 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 127 

starting, they put him to bed in one of those little 
iron bedsteads which were ranged in lines as in a 
hospital, and so he began his long voyage back 
across the seas. Only this time, instead of living 
like a bird, perched up in the rigging among the 
breezes, it was in the oppressive atmosphere of 
between-decks, in the midst of mingled odors of 
medicines, wounds, and sickness. 

During the first days the joy of starting home¬ 
ward made him a little better. He could lie 
propped up in bed with pillows, and would some¬ 
times ask for his box. This sailor’s box was a 
little desk of white wood which he had bought in 
Paimpol to keep his treasures in. There was a 
letter from Grandmother Yvonne, several from 
Yann and Gaud, a copy-book in which he had 
written out some sailors’ songs, and a book of 
Confucius in Chinese, — chance booty, on whose 
blank pages he had written his naive journal of 
the campaign. 

His wound, however, did not heal; and after 
the first week the surgeons decided that his life 
could not be saved. And now they were near 
the equator during the fearful heat of the rainy 
season. But the transport kept up her pace,, 
shaking and shifting the beds, with their ill and 
wounded, sailing rapidly along over the rolling 
sea, which was still rough, as if a monsoon had 
lately passed over it. 

Since their departure from D’Ha-Long more 
than one had died, whom they had been forced 


128 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


to throw overboard with all his little belongings. 
On one day it was very dark in the floating hos¬ 
pital. They had been obliged, on account of 
the heavy sea, to shut the port-holes, and then 
the choking hole of the sick became more hor¬ 
rible than ever. 

Sylvestre was worse ; the end had come. Ly¬ 
ing always on his wounded side, he pressed it to¬ 
gether with his two hands with all the remaining 
force he had, to try to keep the water still, which 
was destroying his right lung, while he endeav¬ 
ored to breathe only with the left. But little by 
little the other also had become affected, and the 
last agony had begun. 

Dreams of his country haunted his dying brain; 
and in the heated darkness figures whom he loved 
or feared came to bend over him. He was lost in 
a continuous delirious dream in which Brittany 
and Iceland passed ever before his eyes. In the 
morning he had asked for the priest, — an old 
man who had seen many sailors die, and who 
was amazed to find under that manly exterior the 
innocence of a little child. 

Sylvestre kept asking for air, air, but there was 
none anywhere ; the air funnels gave no more, and 
the nurse, who fanned him constantly with a fan 
painted with Chinese flowers, only kept in motion 
over him the unhealthful atmosphere whose un¬ 
wholesomeness had already been breathed over a 
hundred times until the lungs could no longer 
endure it. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


I 29 


Sometimes he would try desperately to get out 
of bed, where he knew so well that death was 
coming on, to get out into the open air above to 
try to live again ! Oh, those others running up 
there among the shrouds, and living among the 
rigging ! But all the mighty effort which he made 
only slightly raised his weak neck and head like 
a half movement in sleep. Oh, no, he could 
not! he fell back again into the same hollow 
in his neglected bed, where death had already 
pinioned him; and every time he made the effort, 
he lost for a moment consciousness of everything. 

They had opened a port-hole to please him, al¬ 
though it was very dangerous, as the sea was still 
very high. It was about six o’clock in the even¬ 
ing, and when the iron port was raised, it was only 
light that came in, in red and dazzling rays. The 
sun appeared over the horizon in wonderful mag¬ 
nificence, through a rift in the sombre sky; its 
blinding rays lay across the rolling sea, and lit up 
the rocking transport like a waving torch. 

But no air came in; the little there was, was too 
lifeless to enter in and drive away the fever fumes. 
Over the whole limitless surface of the equatorial 
sea, there was naught but warm dampness and 
breathless oppressiveness, — no air anywhere, not 
even for those who were gasping in death. 

One last vision much disturbed Sylvestre, — his 
old grandmother going quickly along the street, 
hurrying fast with an expression of agonizing 
anxiety on her face, the rain falling over her 
9 


130 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

from dark and overhanging clouds, as she went 
to Paimpol, to learn from the Marine Office that 
he was dead. 

He had come to his last struggle, and the 
death-rattle was in his throat. They sponged 
away the blood and water from the corners of 
his mouth, as it rose in floods from his lungs in 
those last agonized contortions. And still the 
splendid declining sun shone like a world on fire, 
tinging the clouds blood-red; through the port¬ 
hole a great ray of red fire shot in, falling upon 
Sylvestre’s bed and making a flaming nimbus 
around him. 

At this same moment over there in Brittany 
they could also see the sun, as the clocks were 
striking noon. It was the very same sun, and at 
the same moment in its endless existence ; and yet 
it had a very different aspect, as quite high up in 
the bluish sky, it was shining with a soft white 
light on Grandmother Yvonne, sewing at her door. 

In Iceland, where it was morning, they could 
see it too at this moment of death. It was still 
paler up there, and could only be seen, one 
would have said, by a sort of oblique tour de 
force . It was shining in a melancholy way over 
a fiord where the “ Marie ” was lying; and the sky 
about it had that pure northern clearness, such as 
makes one think of frozen planets, swinging in 
airless space. 

It brought out with a cold distinctness all the 
details of that stony chaos which is called Ice- 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 131 

land; and the whole country as seen from the 
“ Marie ” seemed to have been hewn out after one 
pattern, and to be kept there in motionless 
silence, and Yann, who was fishing as usual, 
looked a little strange in the curious light of 
this lunar landscape. 

At the moment that this red beam which came 
through the port-hole was extinguished, as the 
equatorial sun disappeared under the gilded sea, 
the eyes of the dying boy turned upward, and 
then they closed the lids with their long lashes, 
and Sylvestre became calm again and very beauti¬ 
ful, like a recumbent statue. 


CHAPTER III. 

I cannot help recording the story of Sylvestre’s 
funeral, which I conducted myself, away off there 
in the Island of Singapore. So many had had to 
be buried in the sea during the first days of the 
voyage, and this unhealthful country was then so 
near, that it had been decided to keep him a 
few hours longer so as to bury him there. 

The ceremony took place very early in the 
morning, on account of the terrible sun. His 
body was covered with the flag of France, as it 
rested in the small boat which was conveying it 
to the land. 

The great strange city lay still asleep, as we 



1 3 2 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


rowed up; and a little wagon, sent by the consul, 
awaited us on the quay. In it we put Sylvestre 
and the wooden cross which had been made on 
board. The paint was still fresh upon it, as the 
time had been so short, and the white letters 
of his name had run in streaks into the black 
background. 

We crossed this land of Babel as the sun was 
rising, and were astonished to find there, only 
a step from the filthy, yelling Chinese crowd, 
the quiet of a French church. Under the high 
white roof where I stood alone with my sailors, 
the Dies Irse, chanted by a missionary priest, 
sounded like some sweet magic incantation. 
Through the open door the world looked like an 
enchanted garden with its wonderful foliage and 
gigantic palms; and as the wind shook the great 
flowering trees, a shower of carmine petals fell 
down just at the church door. 

Afterward we went to the cemetery, which was 
very far away. Our little funeral cortege of 
sailors seemed a very modest one, but over the 
coffin still lay the flag of France. We had to 
cross the Chinese quarter, filled with swarms of 
yellow humanity, then through the streets where 
the Malays and Indians lived, where all types of 
Asiatic faces watched us with wondering eyes as 
we went by. 

And then into the country, where it was already 
warm, through shadowy paths, where wonderful 
butterflies with blue, velvety wings were flying, 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 133 

where flowers and palms grew luxuriantly in all 
the splendor of equatorial vegetation; and finally 
we reached the cemetery, filled with tombs of 
mandarins, which were covered with many-colored 
inscriptions, dragons and monsters surrounded 
by marvellous foliage and unknown plants. The 
spot where we stopped looked like a corner out 
of the gardens of India. 

Then we set up on his grave the little wooden 
cross, which had been so hastily put together 
during the night, and whereon was painted,— 
Sylvestre Moan, 
aged nineteen years. 

And there we left him, hurrying away on ac¬ 
count of the sun, which was already high in the 
heavens, and only turning backward for one last 
look at the little cross under the wonderful trees 
and gigantic flowers. 


CHAPTER IV. 

The transport went on its way across the 
Indian Ocean. Many wretched and ill were still 
shut up below in the floating hospital; but on 
deck there was nothing but careless youth and 
good health, and all around them from across the 
sea a very festival of pure air and sunshine. 

In the fair weather of the trade winds the 
sailors, stretched under the shadow of the sails, 



134 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

would amuse themselves with their parrots, mak¬ 
ing them run about. (In Singapore, whence they 
had come, all kinds of birds and animals which 
the passing sailors buy for pets are offered for 
sale.) They had all chosen parrots, with baby 
expressions on their bird faces, which had no tails 
as yet, but were already green, — and what a 
green ! Their parents had doubtless been green; 
and they had inherited the same color, and 
on the clean white deck of the vessel, they 
looked like very fresh leaves fallen from a 
tropical tree. 

Sometimes the sailors would collect them all 
together; and then the little creatures would look 
at one another in a very droll way, turning their 
heads about in every direction as if to examine 
one another from every point of view. They limped 
about as if they were lame, with very funny little 
hops, starting off all at once in a great hurry to 
get somewhere or other, and very often tumbling 
down. 

Other sailors were teaching monkeys tricks, — 
another favorite amusement of theirs. Some of 
these little animals were greatly petted by the 
sailors, and would cling to the rough shoulders of 
their masters, looking up at them with almost 
human eyes, half pitiful, half grotesque. 

On the stroke of three, the quarter-master 
brought up on deck two canvas sacks, sealed with 
large seals of red wax, and marked with the name 
of Sylvestre. All his clothes, and everything that 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


x 35 


had belonged to him in the world, were to be sold 
at auction, according to the regulation with re¬ 
gard to the effects of the dead; and the sailors 
gathered eagerly around. There are so many of 
these auctions on board naval hospital ships that 
the sailors are but little affected by them; and 
then, besides, Sylvestre had been so little known 
on board. His jackets, his shirts, his blue-striped 
jerseys, were handled and turned over; and some 
of them brought quite a sum, the sailors bidding up 
the price for the fun of the thing. 

Then came the sacred little box, which was 
valued at fifty sous. They had taken out the 
letters and the military medal to send them to 
his family; but the copy-book with the songs, the 
book of Confucius, the needles, buttons, and all 
the little things which Grandmother Yvonne had 
put in for his mending and repairing, were still 
left in it. Then the quarter-master, who was 
holding up the various articles for sale, exhibited 
two little Buddhas taken from a pagoda as a pres¬ 
ent for Gaud, which looked so absurd that the 
sailors roared with laughter to see them put up 
as the last lot. But if these sailors laughed, it 
was not for lack of feeling, but simply because 
they were thoughtless. 

Finally the bags themselves were sold, and the 
purchaser began to rub off the name on them, so 
that he could put on his own in its place. 

And afterward they carefully swept the deck to 
clear it of what remained of dust or ends of thread 


136 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


after the unpacking. And then the sailors gayly 
went back to their amusements, — to their parrots 
and their monkeys. 


CHAPTER V. 

One day in the first half of the month of June, 
as old Yvonne was going back toward her cottage, 
her neighbors told her that some one from the 
commissioner of the navy department had been 
to see her. 

It was something about her grandson, of course, 
but that caused her no anxiety. The families of 
seafaring people are always having business with 
the department, and she, who had been daughter, 
wife, mother, and grandmother of sailors, had been 
known at the office for nearly sixty years. 

It was something about his commission, no 
doubt, or some little debt which he had incurred 
on board the “Circe,” which would have to be 
paid. Knowing what was due to “ Monsieur le 
Commissaire,” she dressed herself carefully in her 
Sunday dress and a white cap, and then set out 
about two o’clock. She walked quite briskly 
along the cliff-path toward Paimpol, really a little 
anxious when she came to think it over, because 
of not having had any letters for two months. 
She went by her old lover, sitting at his doorway, 
much aged since the frosts of the winter before. 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 137 

“ Well, when you are ready, you know, — don't 
trouble yourself, my beauty.” That old joke 
about the dress of wooden boards was still run¬ 
ning in his head. 

The bright June day was smiling all about her. 
On the high rocky places there is never anything 
but low furze and golden-rod; but as soon as 
one comes down into the little hollows which are 
sheltered from the sharp sea-breeze, one finds 
immediately beautiful fresh verdure, hedges of 
flowering thorn, and tall and fragrant grasses. 
But she scarcely noticed it all, so old was she, 
and so many changing seasons had passed over 
her head that now they seemed hardly more than 
so many days to her. 

About the hamlets and their houses, with dark 
and sunken walls, grew roses, pinks, and asters, 
and a myriad little wild-flowers, which grew nearly 
up to the roofs of thatch or moss, and were just 
spreading out their tiny petals. 

There was no love-making in the springtime in 
this country of the Icelanders; and the beautiful 
girls of this proud race, who were to be seen 
dreaming and absent-minded at the cottage doors, 
seemed to be gazing with their eyes of blue and 
brown far away beyond the visible things which 
surrounded them. The young men to whom went 
out their thoughts and longing were away fishing 
off there in the northern sea. 

But it was spring just the same, awakening the 
senses with its balmy mildness, noisy with the 


138 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

hum of insects and fragrant with the odor ot new 
flowers. 

And all this soulless and unconscious Nature 
smiled out at the old grandmother who was walk¬ 
ing on as fast as she could to hear of the death of 
her last remaining grandson. The moment had 
come when that terrible thing which had hap¬ 
pened so far away on the Chinese sea was to be 
told her; she was taking that ill-fated journey 
which Sylvestre had seen as he was dying, and 
which drew from his eyes their last agonizing tears, 
— his good old grandmother, called to the de¬ 
partment at Paimpol to hear that he was dead. 
He had seen her clearly, as she went along the 
road, walking on very straight and fast, with her 
little brown shawl, her great cap, and her um¬ 
brella. And this was the vision which had made 
him raise his head and struggle in awful agony, 
while the great red sun of the equator, as it set in 
flaming splendor, was shining through the port-hole 
of the transport, watching him die. 

Only off there in his last vision he had seen the 
poor old woman walking under a rainy sky, while 
on the contrary it was a beautiful, mocking spring 
day. 

As she drew nearer to Paimpol, she became 
more and more anxious, and hurried along still 
faster. 

Finally she reached the little gray town with its 
narrow streets deserted by the sun, and said good- 
day to other old women, her contemporaries, who 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 139 

were sitting at their windows. They were sur¬ 
prised to see her, and said to each other, “ Where 
can she be going so quickly in her Sunday dress, 
on a week-day? ” 

The commissioner of the department was not 
in ; only a very ugly little boy about fifteen years 
old, who was his clerk, was there, seated at a 
desk. 

As he was too ill-formed to become a fisher¬ 
man, he was being taught to write, and spent his 
days on this one chair, in black over-sleeves, 
scratching away at his paper. 

When she had given him her name, he got up 
with an air of importance and took some stamped 
papers out of a pigeon-hole. 

There were a number of them. What could 
that mean? Certificates and papers with seals, 
and a sailor’s account-book, yellowed by the sea- 
air, all seeming to have an odor of death about 
them. 

He opened them out before the poor old 
woman, who was beginning to tremble and to 
suspect that something was wrong. It was be¬ 
cause she had recognized two of the letters which 
Gaud had written for her to her grandson, and 
which had come back to her unopened. And 
this same thing had happened twenty years be¬ 
fore, when her son Pierre had died, — letters had 
been sent back to the department from China 
and returned to her. 

He was reading now in an official tone, — 


140 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

“ Moan, Jean Marie Sylvestre, entered at Paimpol, 
folio 213, number 2091, deceased on board the ‘ Bien- 
Hoa, ? the 14 — ” 

“ What — what has happened to him, my good 
gentleman? ” 

“ Deceased, — he is deceased,” he repeated. 

He was not a bad boy, this clerk, and if he 
told her brutally, it was rather on account of his 
lack of judgment or his stupidity; and seeing that 
she did not understand this fine word, he ex¬ 
plained it in Breton,— 

“ Marw-£o.” 

“ Marw-do,”— he is dead. 

She said it after him in her quivering old voice, 
like a poor cracked echo, repeating some unim¬ 
portant phrase. 

It was indeed what she had half suspected, and 
that suspicion alone had made her tremble; but 
now that it was certain, she did not seem to be 
much affected by it. In the first place, her capac¬ 
ity for suffering was really somewhat dulled on ac¬ 
count of her age, particularly since the last winter. 
The pain did not come directly. And then some¬ 
thing was confusing her brain; for the moment 
she was confounding this death with others which 
had happened long ago; she had lost so many 
sons. It took her a moment to remember that 
this was her last, her darling, on whom had been 
spent all her prayers, her life, her hopes, and her 
thoughts already so dulled by the approach of 
second childhood. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


141 

She was ashamed of showing her grief before 
this disagreeable little boy. Was this the way 
to announce a grandchild’s death to his grand¬ 
mother ? 

She stood up stiffly against the desk, pulling at 
the fringe of her brown shawl with her poor 
chapped hands. And how far away from home 
she seemed ! Dear God, what a way she would 
have to go quietly and decently before she could 
reach the hut where she so longed to hide her¬ 
self like a wounded animal which runs to earth 
to die ! It was because she was terrified at the 
thought of this long way home that she forced 
herself not to think about it too much, or to really 
take it in. 

They gave her an order for the thirty francs 
which came to her from the sale of Sylvestre’s 
things, then the letters, the certificates, and the 
box which contained the military medal; and she 
took them awkwardly with her trembling fingers, 
changing them from one hand to the other as she 
fumbled for her pocket. 

She went straight through Paimpol without see¬ 
ing anybody, bent over as if she were going to 
fall, and feeling the blood rushing into her ears,— 
hurrying, driving on, like a poor old machine 
which is pushed to its highest speed for the last 
time, without any one troubling about its breaking 
down. 

At the end of the third mile, she was walking 
all bent over and completely exhausted; every 


142 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


now and then her sabot struck against a stone, 
giving her a painful shock; but she still hurried on 
to shut herself up at home, ever fearful lest she 
might fall and have to be carried there. 


CHAPTER VI. 

“ See old Yvonne ; she’s drunk ! ” 

She had fallen; and the street-boys were run¬ 
ning after her. It was just at the point where 
the parish of Ploubazlanec begins, and there are 
many houses along the road. But she still had 
enough strength to get up again, and went limping 
away with the aid of her stick. 

“ Old Yvonne's drunk ! ” 

The impudent youngsters peered into her face 
and laughed. Her cap was fallen all to one side. 
There were some of them who were not so bad 
at heart; and when they had seen the look upon 
the old face, which was contorted with despair, 
they ran away, frightened and sorry, not daring to 
say another word. 

Once at home, with the door shut, she uttered 
the cry of distress which had been choking her, 
and let herself fall into a corner, with her head 
against the wall. Her cap had fallen over her 
eyes, and she threw it on the ground, her poor cap, 
always so scrupulously taken care of. Her best 
Sunday dress was all soiled, and a thin, yellowish- 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


*43 


white lock of hair escaped from her comb and 
fell over her shoulders, completing her wretched 
disorder. 


CHAPTER VII. 

It was thus that Gaud found her when she 
came over to inquire about her in the evening, 
with her hair quite undone, her head against the 
wall, her face drawn with anguish, uttering a 
plaintive cry like a little child. She could scarcely 
weep; these very old women have few tears in 
their dry eyes. 

“ My grandson is dead ! ” 

And she threw the letters, papers, and the medal 
into Gaud’s lap. 

Gaud glanced quietly through them, seeing 
that it was indeed true, and then threw herself 
on her knees to pray. 

So the two women remained mutely kneeling 
while the June twilight lingered. In Brittany the 
twilight is very long; and off there in Iceland it 
never ends at all. The cricket, which brings good 
luck, kept up its shrill piping on the hearth; and 
the yellow light of evening shone through the 
window into this cottage of the Moans, all of 
whom the sea had taken, and who were soon to 
become an extinct race. 

At last Gaud said, — 



144 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

“I will come myself, dear grandmother, and 
live with you. I will bring my bed, which they 
left me, and will stay with you and take care of 
you; you shall not be left alone ! ” 

She wept for her little friend Sylvestre ; but the 
thought of another intruded itself upon her grief 
in spite of herself, — that one who was fishing so 
far away. 

Yann, — he would have to be told that Sylves¬ 
tre was dead; the messenger boats would be 
leaving just at the right time to take him the 
news. Would he shed just one tear for him? 
Perhaps, for he loved him well. In the midst of 
her own tears she could not forget, as she thought 
of him, sometimes bitterly, and sometimes with 
relenting tenderness, that this sorrow was coming 
to him also, and it almost seemed a bond of union 
between them; in fact, her heart was full of him. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

One pale August evening, the letter announcing 
to Yann the death of his brother finally arrived 
on board the “ Marie ” in the northern sea; it 
was after a day of rough sailing and great fatigue, 
just at the moment when he was going below to 
get his supper and go to bed. With eyes heavy 
with sleep he read it through, down in the dim 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 145 

cabin by the yellow light of the little lamp, and 
at the first moment he too seemed stunned and 
stupefied, as if he could not take it in. As he 
was always unusually reserved and proud about 
anything that he felt deeply, he hid the letter 
under his blue jersey next his breast, as sailors do, 
without saying a word to any one. 

Yet he found he did not feel like sitting down 
to supper with the others, and not deigning to 
explain why, he threw himself into his bunk and 
fell asleep. And then he dreamed that Syl- 
vestre was dead, and that his funeral cortege 
was passing by. 

About midnight, being in that state of mind 
which is peculiar to sailors, who know the time 
in their sleep, and who feel the moment approach¬ 
ing when they must get up for their watch, he was 
still seeing this burial, and said to himself, “ I am 
dreaming; fortunately, I ’ll have to wake up soon, 
and then it will go away.” 

But when a rough hand was laid on him, and a 
voice called, “ Gaos, get up ! it’s time to relieve 
the watch,” he heard the paper rustle against his 
breast, — a mournful little sound, which made him 
realize the sad truth. “ Oh, yes ! the letter ; it 
was true, then ! ” and a sharper, more cruel pain 
shot through his heart; and as he hastily arose, in 
his sudden awakening he struck his head against 
the beams of his bunk. 

Then he dressed, and lifting the hatch-cover, 
went up on deck to resume his fishing. 

10 


146 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


CHAPTER IX. 

When Yann had gotten up on deck he looked 
about him with his half-opened eyes, out over the 
great familiar circle of the sea. 

On that night, its grandeur wore an aspect of 
wonderful simplicity; and its neutral tints gave 
only the impression of depth and distance. 

That horizon which marks no region of the 
earth, nor yet any geological period, must have 
worn this same look unnumbered times since the 
creation of the world, when the eye which seeks 
finds nothing, — nothing but the eternity of the 
material things that are and cannot choose but 
be. 

The darkness of the night was relieved by a 
dim, vague radiance which came from one knew 
not whence, and about the vessel the wind was 
sighing its aimless, eternal lament. 

And all around was a melting grayness which 
the eye could not penetrate; so does the slum¬ 
bering sea love to veil, under quiet nameless tints, 
her mighty and mysterious repose. Vaporous 
clouds floated on high, as formless as material 
things can be, and in the dim light seeming to 
cover the sky like a great veil. 

But at one point in the heavens, low down 
near the horizon, there appeared a sort of wavy 
brightness, distinct though distant, — an indefinite 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


*47 


design, traced as by some careless hand; a work 
of chance, not meant to be looked at, fugitive and 
vanishing. And this alone, in all the circumfer¬ 
ence of sea and sky, seemed to have a meaning; 
one would almost have said that the melancholy 
thought of this vast silence was written there, 
whither the eye was at last unconsciously drawn. 

The more Yann’s quick eyes became accus¬ 
tomed to the dim light outside, the more he gazed 
at this single drawing in the sky, and it seemed 
to him to assume the shape of a vanishing figure 
with two outstretched arms; and now that he had 
begun to look at it, it seemed to him quite like a 
human shape magnified to a gigantic size from 
having come so far. And then in his imagination, 
where floated together inexpressible dreams and 
superstitious beliefs, this melancholy shadow, sunk 
in the edge of the cloudy sky, intermingled itself 
gradually with the memory of his dead brother 
like a last manifestation of his spirit. He was 
accustomed to the strange association of images 
which is characteristic of the early part of life 
and of childish minds; but words, however vague, 
are still too definite to express such thoughts, and 
one needs that uncertain language which we some¬ 
times speak in dreams, and of which nothing 
remains to us on waking, but puzzling, incoherent 
fragments. As he watched this cloud, he felt a 
deep sadness come over him, — a sadness ago¬ 
nizing, mysterious, and hitherto unknown, which 
stopped the beating of his heart; and now for the 


148 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

first time he seemed really to understand that he 
should never, never see his little brother again. 
The sorrow which had been long in piercing that 
hard stem heart of his had entered now and filled 
it full. He saw once more the sweet face of 
Sylvestre with its innocent, childish eyes, and when 
he thought of that meeting and embracing which 
never more would be, something like a veil sud¬ 
denly fell before his eyes in spite of himself. At 
first he did not know what it was, having never 
wept since he was a child; but the great tears 
began to rain down his cheeks, and his deep 
chest heaved with sobs. 

He went on fishing very rapidly, without stop¬ 
ping or saying a word; and the others, who heard 
him in the silence, refrained from showing that 
they noticed him, for fear of annoying him, 
knowing how proud and reserved he was. Ac¬ 
cording to his idea, death was the end of every¬ 
thing. He had always been accustomed, out of 
deference, to join in the prayers for the dead at 
home ; but he had no belief in the immortality 
of the soul. 

When sailors talk among one another, they all 
say the same thing in a short and decided way, 
as if everybody knew it; nevertheless, it does 
not prevent them from having a vague dread 
of ghosts and fear of cemeteries, and an entire 
confidence in saints and protecting images, or 
an instinctive veneration for the sacred ground 
around churches. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


149 


And then Yann always expected that the sea 
would claim him, and that then he would be lost 
in utter annihilation; and the thought that Syl- 
vestre was away over there in that distant land 
made his sorrow still more hopeless and pro¬ 
found. 

With his disregard of other people, he wept 
without shame or constraint, as if he had been 
alone. 

Outside, it was getting lighter over the empty 
sea, although it was hardly more than two o’clock, 
and at the same time the distances seemed to 
extend immeasurably. 

In this strange false dawn, the eyes open still 
wider, and the awakening mind better under¬ 
stands the immensity of the distances; and the 
limits of visible space retreat still more, fleeing 
ever before the sight. 

It was a pale, pale light, which gradually grew 
brighter, seeming to come in little jets, with 
slight and sudden shocks; it made the heavens 
look as if they were being illuminated like a trans¬ 
parency, and as if lamps with white flames were 
being raised, little by little, little by little, behind 
the shapeless gray clouds, — carefully raised with 
mysterious caution, for fear of disturbing the 
mournful repose of the sea. 

That great white lamp over there, over the 
horizon, was the sun, weakly dragging itself along 
before making its slow cold journey over the icy 
waters, which it must begin in the early morning. 


150 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

But that morning there were no rosy tints of 
dawn in all the sad pale sky, and on board the 
“ Marie ” a strong man was weeping. 

These tears shed by his wild brother and the 
deep melancholy of the outside world were the 
only tribute of grief paid to the memory of the 
poor, obscure little hero on these Iceland seas 
where half his life had been spent. 

At daybreak Yann roughly dried his eyes with 
the sleeve of his woollen jersey, and wept no more. 
It was over. He seemed to become absorbed 
again in his fishing, by the monotonous habits 
of every-day life, and to think no more about 
his grief. And they were in the midst of a 
large shoal of fish just then, and their arms were 
hardly strong enough to pull them in. 

Round about the fishermen, in the deep dis¬ 
tances, the aspect of the world was again chang¬ 
ing. The mighty unveiling of the universe, the 
great spectacle of dawn, was finished. 

Now, on the contrary, the visible space seemed 
to contract and to be closing in. How could 
one, just before, have thought the sea so limit¬ 
less ? The horizon appeared now quite close, and 
it seemed as if there was hardly room enough. 
The open sky was soon filled with those float¬ 
ing veils, — some more vague than clouds, and 
some with fringed outlines just distinguishable. 
They fell softly, like white and airy gauze, into 
the infinite stillness; but they were falling all the 
same, and very soon closed thickly about them, 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 151 

until the atmosphere became almost oppressively 
overcharged. 

It was the first August fog which was coming 
up, and in a few minutes the mist became every¬ 
where equally thick and impenetrable ; and about 
the “ Marie ” there was nothing to be seen but a 
pale white dampness, through which the daylight 
filtered dimly, and through which they could 
scarcely see the masts and rigging. “ Here’s 
the sea fog come at last,” the men said. 

They had long been acquainted with this in¬ 
evitable accompaniment of the second period of 
fishing; but it meant also the end of the Iceland 
season, and that the time had come for them to 
start on their way back to Brittany. 

It gathered on their beards in bright little 
drops, and made their bronzed faces shine with 
moisture; and when they looked at one another 
from opposite ends of the vessel, they seemed 
like phantoms, while on the other hand, objects 
which were quite near by appeared larger than 
ever in the dull white light. 

They took care not to breathe with their 
mouths open, for then a feeling of cold and wet 
penetrated the lungs. 

At the same time the fishing proceeded faster 
than ever, and not a word was spoken as the 
heavy haul went on. 

Every moment heavy large fish were pulled in 
and thrown on the deck with a sound like the 
lash of a whip, madly flapping their tails about, 


152 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

until everything was splashed with salt water and 
covered with the fine silver scales they shed in 
struggling. 

The sailor who was cutting them open with his 
great knife gashed his fingers in his hurry, and 
the bright red blood mingled with the salt and 
the brine. 


CHAPTER X. 

They stayed there this time ten days together, 
caught in the thick fog, and seeing nothing. The 
fishing continued good, and they were too busy 
to talk. From time to time, at regular intervals, 
one of them blew on a fog-horn, which gave out 
a sound like the bellow of a wild beast. 

And sometimes, from far in the depth of the 
white mist, another bellowing like ii would an¬ 
swer to their call. And then the man on the 
lookout was more watchful than ever; and if 
the sound came nearer, all ears listened for the 
unknown neighbor, whom they would probably 
never be able to see, but whose proximity was 
nevertheless a danger. 

And they would make conjectures as to what 
ship it could be, and that made an occupation 
for them ; it seemed a sort of company for them, 
and they tried hard in their eagerness to see 
something, to look through the impalpable white 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 153 

muslin curtains which hung everywhere about 
them in the air. 

Then the sound would retreat, and the bellow- 
ings of the trumpet die away and be lost in the 
dull distance; and they would find themselves 
alone again in the deep stillness, in the midst 
of the infinite motionless mist. Everything be¬ 
came impregnated with water and dripped with 
salt and brine. The cold became more penetra¬ 
ting ; the sun hung still lower over the horizon; 
and they began to have two or three hours of 
real night, which closed in over them with a gray 
and sombre chill. Every morning they took 
soundings for fear lest the “ Marie ” might drift 
upon some island on the Iceland coast; but all 
the lines on board the “ Marie ” put together did 
not touch bottom, and so they knew that they 
were well out to sea in good deep water. 

Their life, though rough, was a healthy one; and 
the biting cold made their evenings seem more 
comfortable, and heightened the pleasant feeling 
of warmth and shelter which they found on going 
down into their massive oak cabin to sleep or eat. 

During the day, these men, who were more 
isolated than cloistered monks, talked little to 
one another. They would stay hours and hours 
at the same post, each holding his line, their arms 
alone occupied in the constant work of fishing. 
Though only separated by two or three yards, 
they finished by taking no notice of one another. 

The calm of the fog and its white obscurity 


154 AIN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

had dulled their brains. While fishing, they would 
sing some old ballad, but softly, under their 
breath, for fear of frightening away the fish. 

Their thoughts came very slowly, and there 
were fewer of them, seeming to expand and 
stretch themselves out, in order to fill up the 
time without leaving any gaps or intervals of 
blankness in the mind. 

And sometimes their thoughts wandered off 
into incoherent and marvellous dreams, as if in 
sleep; and the woof of these dreams was as 
vague and floating as a vapor. 

This foggy month of August always brought 
the Iceland season thus quietly and sadly to an 
end. Still the same vigorous physical existence 
went on, expanding the lungs of the sailors and 
hardening their muscles. 

Yann had quite recovered his usual manner, 
and seemed to have forgotten his sorrow. Watch¬ 
ful and alert, prompt in action both in fishing 
and managing the ship, he went about his work 
with the easy, careless manner of one who has no 
troubles; and with the others he was communi¬ 
cative only when he chose to be, — which was 
not often, — and always held his head high, with 
an air at once indifferent and commanding. 

In the evening, in the warm oaken cabin, over 
which the china Virgin presided, when he was 
seated at table with his great knife in his hand 
before some good hot dish, he sometimes laughed 
as before at the funny things the others said. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 155 

Perhaps he did still think a little in secret of 
this Gaud whom Sylvestre in his last feeble ago¬ 
nizing thoughts had doubtless given to him as 
his wife, — of this girl who was now left quite poor 
and alone in the world; and perhaps in the 
depths of his heart he still mourned for his 
brother. But this heart of Yann was virgin soil, 
ungoverned and untamed, and gave no outward 
sign of what went on within. 


CHAPTER XI. 

One morning, about three o ’clock, as the crew 
of the “ Marie ” were dreamily fishing away under 
the fog, they heard a sound as of some one 
speaking in a voice which seemed strange and 
unfamiliar. Those who were on deck looked 
questioningly at one another as much as to say, 
“Who was that speaking?” 

Nobody; no one had said anything, and in 
fact, it seemed as if the voice came from the 
empty air. 

Then the man who had charge of the fog-horn, 
and who had neglected to blow it since the 
evening before, rushed for it and blew with all 
his might the signal of alarm. 

That alone was enough to startle one in this 
deep silence. And then, as if some apparition 
had been evoked by the hoarse sound of the 



156 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

horn, a great gray shape suddenly rose out of 
the fog, towering threateningly near them, — a 
shadowy vessel, with masts, yards, and rigging, ap- 
' pearing all at once before their sight like those 
pictures which are flashed on a sheet from a 
stereopticon. And other men appeared there 
close enough to be touched, leaning over the 
bulwarks with wide-open startled eyes, as if in 
a sudden awakening of terrified surprise. 

The men of the “ Marie ” seized oars, jury- 
masts, and boat-hooks, or whatever they could 
find in the forecastle which was long and strong 
enough, and laid them out over the side of the 
vessel to keep these visitors at a distance. And 
the others, equally frightened, pushed out enor¬ 
mous poles to keep them off. 

But there was only a slight cracking of the 
yards over their heads. The rigging caught for 
a moment, but separated immediately without any 
damage being done. The shock, which would 
have been very slight in any case, on account of 
the calm, was scarcely felt. 

It had been indeed so slight that it seemed really 
as if that other ship was an airy, yielding thing, 
almost without weight or substance. 

And then, the danger being past, the men began 
to laugh, as they recognized one another. 

“ The ‘ Marie,’ ahoy ! ” 

“ Holloa, Gaos, Laumec, Guermeur ! ” 

The apparition was the “ Reine Berthe,” Captain 
Larvoer, also of Paimpol; and the sailors were 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 15 7 

from the outlying villages. That big fellow there 
with the black beard, who showed his teeth when 
he laughed, was Kerj^gou, a native of Ploudaniel, 
and the others were from Plounes or Plounerin. 

“ Well, why did n’t you blow your fog-horn, 
you crew of savages?” demanded Larvoer of 
the “ Reine Berthe.” 

“ And why did n’t you, you pirates, spongers 
and scum of the sea?” 

“ Oh ! as for us, that’s a different matter. We 
are forbidden to make any noise.” 

He made this reply in a manner which seemed 
to imply some dark mystery, and with a strange 
smile which the crew of the “ Marie ” often after¬ 
ward recalled and pondered over long. And 
then, as if he had said too much, he ended off 
with a joke,— 

“And as for our fog-horn, that fellow over 
there has cracked it for us blowing through it.” 

And he pointed to a sailor with the face of a 
Triton, who seemed to be all neck and chest, with 
little short legs, and something inexpressibly gro¬ 
tesque and frightful in his powerful deformity. 

And while they lingered there, looking at one 
another, and waiting for some breeze or current 
to separate them, they chatted together. They 
were all leaning over the side, still holding their 
long poles, looking like besiegers with their pikes, 
while they talked of home affairs, the last letters 
brought by the messenger boats, their old parents, 
and their wives. 


158 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

“My wife,” said Kerj£gou, “has written me 
that she has just had the baby we were expect¬ 
ing ; we ’ll have a dozen pretty soon.” 

Another one had had twins; and a third an¬ 
nounced the marriage of pretty Jeannie Caroff, 
a girl very well known among the Icelanders, 
to a certain rich old dotard of the parish of 
Pleurivo. 

They saw one another as if through white 
gauze, and their voices also sounded dull and 
distant. 

But Yann could not take his eyes off one of 
the fishermen, — a little old man whom he had 
never seen anywhere before, and who never¬ 
theless spoke to him directly, saying, “ Holloa, 
big Yann! ” with the air of an intimate ac¬ 
quaintance. He was as irritatingly ugly as a 
monkey, and had the same malicious twinkle in 
his sharp eyes. 

Then Larvoer, of the “ Reine Berthe,” said, 
“They have written me of the death of old 
Yvonne Moan’s grandson from Ploubazlanec, who 
was serving his time, as you know, with the Chinese 
squadron, and a very great pity too ! ” 

Hearing this, the rest of the “ Marie’s ” crew 
looked toward Yann to see if he had heard the 
bad news. 

“Yes,” he said in a low voice, with a careless, 
haughty air; “ it was in the last letter that my 
father wrote me.” 

They all looked at him; and this curiosity 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 159 

about his sorrow annoyed him. The questions 
flew thick and fast across the pale mists while 
the moments of their strange encounter were 
passing. 

“ My wife wrote me at the same time,” con¬ 
tinued Larvoer, “ that the daughter of M. M£vel 
has left the town to live at Ploubazlanec, and 
take care of old Mother Moan, her great-aunt, 
and that she has begun to go out to work by the 
day to earn her living. It’s always been my 
opinion that she is a good and a brave girl, in 
spite of her young-lady airs and her finery. ” 

Then they all looked at Vann again, which 
provoked him still fartherand a red flush showed 
under the dark tan of his cheeks. 

With this praise of Gaud was ended the con¬ 
versation with the “ Reine Berthe,” which no living 
being ever would see again. 

For an instant their vanishing faces showed 
dimly in the fog as the ships drifted slightly apart, 
and then suddenly the crew of the “ Marie ” saw 
that there was nothing at the end of their long 
poles. Their spars, oars, masts, and yards trem¬ 
bled a moment in the empty air, and theii fell 
heavily one after the other into the sea, like great 
lifeless arms. The “ Reine Berthe,” plunging 
into the fog, had suddenly and completely dis¬ 
appeared, as the picture fades out of a trans¬ 
parency when the light is blown out. They tried 
to hail her, but there was no response to their 
calls, except a kind of mocking clamor as of 


l6o AN ICELAND FISHERMAN 

many voices, ending in a groan which made them 
turn and look at one another in surprise. 

The “ Reine Berthe ” did not come back with 
the other Iceland boats, and as the crew of the 
“ Samuel-Azenide ” came across a piece of wreck 
in a fiord, about which there could be no doubt, — 
the crown on her stern and a piece of her keel, — 
they gave up expecting her; and after the month 
of October the names of all her crew were in¬ 
scribed on black tablets in the church. 

But after this last appearance, whose date the 
crew of the “ Marie ” well remembered, until the 
time of the return, there had been no bad weather 
at all on the Iceland sea, while on the other hand, 
three weeks before, a gale from the west had 
swept away several sailors, and sunk two ships. 

And they called to mind Larvoer’s strange 
smile ; and putting one thing with another, a great 
many conjectures were made. Yann remembered 
more than once by night the sailor with the evil 
monkey eyes ; and some of the “ Marie’s ” crew 
asked themselves timidly if on that morning they 
had not been talking with the dead. 


CHAPTER XII. 

The summer drew on to a close; and the end 
of August, with its early morning mists, saw the 
Icelanders returning. 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. l6l 

For three months past, the two lone women 
had lived together in the Moans’ cottage at 
Ploubazlanec. Gaud had taken the place of a 
daughter in this poor nest of lost sailors. She 
had brought with her all that had been left her 
after the sale of her father’s house, — her pretty 
bed with its curtains, and her gowns of various 
colors. She had made herself a new black dress, 
very plain and simple, and wore a mourning cap 
of thick plaited muslin, like old Yvonne. 

She went out to sew by the day at the houses 
of the rich people of the town, and came home 
at night, without being disturbed by any imperti¬ 
nent admirers, remaining even a little haughty, 
and being still treated like a young lady, the lads 
of the village touching their caps to her as she 
went by, as they had always done. 

In the lovely summer twilights, as she came 
home from Paimpol, she would walk along the 
cliff-path, and breathe in long draughts of the 
quieting sea-air. Her days at the needle had not 
yet impaired her beauty, as they do those who 
spend all their lives bending over their work; and 
as she looked off over the sea, she drew up the 
beautiful lithe figure which she had inherited 
from her race, gazing off over that ocean on 
whose mighty depths Yann was sailing. 

This same path led to where he lived; going 
on a little farther toward a certain region, 
rockier and more windswept than this, one 
would arrive at that hamlet of Pors-Even, where 


i 


162 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

the moss-covered trees, growing small between 
the rocks, bend before the mighty blasts of the 
west wind. She would probably never go again 
to Pors-Even, — although it was scarcely a league 
away, — but she had been there once, and this 
visit had left a charm for her over all the way. 

Besides, Yann must often pass that way, and 
she would be able to follow him from the door, 
coming and going over the flat country, among 
the low furze-bushes. And so she loved this 
whole region of Ploubazlanec, and was almost 
glad that fate had cast her there, feeling that she 
could better endure her life there than anywhere 
else. 

At this time in the end of August, there is a 
languid feeling in the air which seems to come 
northward from the tropical countries; the even¬ 
ings are clear and bright, and reflections from 
that great burning sun of other lands fall even 
upon the Breton sea, and very often the air is 
still and clear without a cloud. 

At the time Gaud usually returned home the 
day was melting into night, and things began to 
grow indistinct and to stand out darkly against 
the sky. Here and there a clump of furze stood 
up among the rocks like a bunch of rumpled 
feathers, or a group of gnarled trees formed a 
dark mass of shadow in a hollow, or perhaps a 
little hut with a thatched roof raised its low 
dwarfed silhouette above the ground. At the 
crossways, ancient figures of Christ, standing guard 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 163 

over the land, stretched out their blackened arms 
upon their crosses, like living men in torture; and 
in the distance the waters of the Channel shone 
out clear and distinct like a great golden mirror 
under a sky which was already darkening toward 
the horizon. 

Even the fair weather and the calm seem mel¬ 
ancholy in this country, for there always remains 
a feeling of restlessness over all, — an anxiety 
which comes from that sea to which so many lives 
are confided, and whose eternal menace is but 
slumbering. 

As Gaud walked dreamily along, she found her 
way home in the open air always far too short; 
the salty odor of the beach mingled with the 
sweet fragrance of the little flowers growing along 
the cliff among the tall gaunt thistles, and if it 
had not been for Grandmother Yvonne, who was 
waiting for her at home, she would have willingly 
loitered along the paths among the furze, like the 
pretty girls who love to dream away their summer 
evenings in the fields. 

And as she walked along this country some 
memories of her childhood doubtless came to her, 
but now everything had faded away, was lost, in¬ 
deed, and forgotten in her great love. 

She preferred in spite of everything to think of 
Yann as her sweetheart, — a lover contemptuous 
and untamed, who never would be hers, but to 
whom her heart remained faithful all the same, 
and never would be given to another. For the 


164 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


time she was glad to know that he was in Iceland ; 
there at least, the sea would keep him in her 
deep cloisters, and he could not belong to any 
one else. 

One of these days, he would be coming back, 
she knew; but she contemplated that return more 
calmly than before. Instinctively she compre¬ 
hended that her poverty would not make him 
more disdainful of her, for he was not like other 
men; and the death of poor little Sylvestre was 
certainly a bond of sympathy between them. 
When he came back he could not fail to come to 
their cottage to see the grandmother of his friend ; 
and she had decided that she would be there 
when he came. It did not seem to her that that 
would be undignified ; and without appearing con¬ 
scious of the past, she would speak to him like an 
old friend, she would talk with him even affection¬ 
ately, as to Sylvestre’s brother, and try to seem 
perfectly natural. And who knows? she might 
perhaps even take the place of a sister to him, 
now that she was so alone in the world, might 
rely upon his friendship, asking it of him as an 
aid and help, speaking clearly enough so that he 
could not think she had any thought of marriage 
behind her words. She thought him only rude, 
with his obstinate ideas of independence, but 
frank and kind and capable of understanding 
what was spoken from the heart. What would 
he think when he found her living in this almost 
ruined cottage, and so poor? Very poor indeed, 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 165 

oh, yes ! — for Grandmother Moan, being no 
longer able to work all day at the laundry, had 
nothing left her now but her widow’s pension; it 
is true she heeded very little to eat at her age, 
and the two could still manage so as not to have 
to ask any favors of anybody. 

It was always dark when Gaud arrived home; 
before entering the house, one had to go down a 
little over the worn stones, as the cottage was 
situated just below the Ploubazlanec road, on a 
piece of ground which sloped toward the shore. 
It was almost hidden under a thick roof of brown 
thatch, all sunken in, and looking like the back 
of some enormous beast, fallen down under the 
weight of its heavy coat. Its walls had the dull 
color and the roughness of the rocks, with moss 
and lichens growing over them in little green tufts ; 
one went up the three sunken steps leading to the 
threshold, and opened the inside latch of the 
door with a bit of tarred string which hung out 
of a hole. 

On entering, one saw first of all the dormer- 
window cut deeply in the wall as if in the thick¬ 
ness of a rampart, and looking toward the sea, 
through which came a last ray of pale yellow 
light. In the fireplace were burning little fra¬ 
grant bundles of pine and fir, which old Yvonne 
collected in her walks along the paths; and she 
herself was seated there attending to their little 
supper. At home she only wore a comb in her 
hair, to save her caps; and her still pretty profile 


66 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


was outlined against the red firelight. As Gaud 
entered, the old woman looked up with eyes 
which were once brown, but now had faded to 
a dull blue, which saw clearly no longer, but 
were troubled, wandering, and uncertain with 
age; and she always made the same remark, — 

“ Dear me, my girl, how late you are this 
evening ! ” 

“ Oh, no, Grandmother,” Gaud pleasantly re¬ 
plied, being used to the exclamation. “ It’s no 
later than usual.” 

“ Ah, it seemed to me, my dear, it seemed to 
me that it was later than usual.” 

They took their supper on a table which was 
so old that it had almost lost the look of a table, 
but was still as solid as the trunk of a great oak; 
and the cricket never failed to pipe up with its 
little silvery note. One of the sides of the cot¬ 
tage was occupied by rough carvings now quite 
worm-eaten, and behind them, when the doors 
were opened, were to be seen the cupboard-beds 
where generations of sailors had been born, had 
slept, and where their old mothers had died. 

From the black rafters hung old kitchen uten¬ 
sils, bundles of herbs, wooden spoons, smoked 
beef, and also old fishing-nets which had been 
mouldering there since the last Moan sons were 
shipwrecked; so that Gaud’s bed, set in one cor¬ 
ner, with its white muslin curtains, looked like 
a delicate bit of luxury brought into the hut of 
a Celt. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


167 


There was a photograph of Sylvestre in his 
sailor’s uniform, in a frame hanging against the 
granite wall, over which his grandmother had 
hung his military medal, with a pair of red cloth 
anchors, such as sailors wear on their right sleeves, 
and which had been his. Gaud had also bought 
one of those mortuary crowns of black and white 
pearl beads, such as are put around the portraits 
of the dead in Brittany; and that was his little 
mausoleum, — all that they had to keep his mem¬ 
ory sacred in his Breton home. 

Gaud and Grandmother Moan went to bed 
early, to save the lights; but on summer evenings, 
when the weather was fine, they sat out for a few 
moments on a stone by the door, and watched the 
passers-by on the road, a little above their heads. 

Then old Yvonne went to bed in her wooden 
cupboard, and Gaud in her own pretty bed, where, 
having worked hard and walked a long way, she 
fell asleep quite soon, and dreamed of the Ice¬ 
landers, but like a good, brave girl, without 
troubling herself too much about them. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

But one day at Paimpol, hearing that the 
“ Marie ” had just arrived, Gaud felt herself seized 
with a kind of fever. All the calm with which she 
had awaited its return suddenly abandoned her. 



i68 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


She hurried through her work, without knowing 
why she did so, and started homeward earlier than 
usual; and as she hastened along the road, she 
recognized Yann at a distance coming toward her. 

She trembled all over, and could scarcely 
stand. He was already quite near, coming along 
hardly twenty feet away from her, with his magnif¬ 
icent figure, and his curly locks under his fisher’s 
cap. She was taken so unawares by this encoun¬ 
ter that she really was afraid he would perceive 
that she was trembling, and she would have 
died with shame if he had. And then she felt 
sure that her hair was out of order, and that she 
looked tired, from having hurried with her work. 
She would have given anything to be able to 
hide under a furze-bush or disappear down some 
marten-hole. 

And then he too started back a little, as if to 
try to go some other way. But it was too late; 
they would have to pass each other in the narrow 
path. He threw himself against the bank, to 
avoid touching her, shying like a restive horse, 
while he looked furtively at her. 

She too for half a second lifted her eyes, 
which unconsciously revealed all her longing and 
her pain; and as their eyes met involuntarily for 
an instant, her violet pupils seemed to dilate, 
and under the influence of her deep and sudden 
emotion seemed almost to flash fire, while her 
face flushed to her temples under the roots of her 
golden hair. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 169 

As he touched his hat he said, “ Good-day, 
Mademoiselle Gaud.” 

“ Good-day, Monsieur Yann,” she replied, and 
that was all; it was over. She went on her way, 
still trembling, but feeling the blood flowing natu¬ 
rally again, and her strength returning, the farther 
he departed. 

At the cottage she found old Mother Moan in 
a corner, with her head in her hands, weeping 
and crying with her childish “ hi, hi, hi! ” her hair 
all undone, and escaping from her comb like a 
thin skein of gray hemp. 

“ Oh, my dear Gaud ! I met young Gaos on 
the road to Plouhersel, just as I was coming back 
from gathering my sticks; and we talked about 
my grandson, as you may suppose. They only 
got back from Iceland this morning, and he had 
been to see me this afternoon while I was away. 
Poor boy ! there were tears in his eyes too; and 
he insisted on coming all the way back with me, 
dear Gaud, to carry my little bundle of sticks.” 

Gaud listened to this, standing, while her heart 
grew heavier and heavier. So this visit of Yann 
on which she had counted for telling him so 
many things, was already paid, and probably 
never would be repeated. It was all over. And 
then the cottage seemed still more desolate, and 
poverty still harder to bear, and the world so 
empty that she bent her head and wished that 
she might die. 


170 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

The winter came on little by little, like a 
slowly dropping winding-sheet, and cold gray 
days followed cold gray days; but Yann did not 
appear again, and the two women lived quite de¬ 
serted and alone. 

With the cold of the winter living was more 
expensive, and it was harder to get along. 

And then old Yvonne became very difficult to 
take care of; she lost her temper easily, and said 
malicious and insulting things. The fit would take 
her once or twice a week like a child, and for no 
reason whatever. Poor old woman ! she was still 
so kind and sweet on her sensible days that Gaud 
did not cease to respect and care for her. How 
strange to have been always so good, and end by 
being so bad, — to reveal in her last hours a depth 
of malice which in all her life had never stirred, 
and a whole vocabulary of vulgar words which 
never before had been spoken ! What hidden 
mystery was here, what mockery of the soul! 

She began to sing too; and that was worse 
to listen to than her anger was to bear, — things 
which came back to her by chance, parts of the 
“ Oremus ” in the Mass, or more likely some 
vulgar couplets which she had heard the sailors 
singing on the quays long ago. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. I 71 

Sometimes she would drone out the “ Fillettes 
de Paimpol,” or very often, nodding her head and 
keeping time with her foot, she would strike up : 

“ Mon marl vient de partir ; 

Pour la peche d’Islande, mon mari vient de partir, 

II m’a laissee sans le sou; 

Mais, trala, trala, la lou! 

J’en gagne! 

J’en gagne! ” 

And each time she would stop quite short, 
while her eyes would gaze wide open into va¬ 
cancy, and then all look of life would fade out 
of them, like the dying flame which suddenly 
shoots up before it is finally extinguished. And 
then her head would drop, and she would remain 
in a stupid state for a long time, with her mouth 
open as if she was dead. 

Besides all this, she did not always keep herself 
very clean nowadays, and that was a kind of trial 
which Gaud had not counted on. 

One day she forgot her grandson. “ Sylvestre, 
Sylvestre? ” she said to Gaud, as if trying to re¬ 
member who Sylvestre could be. “ Oh, Lord, 
my dear, you see I had so many when I was 
young, boys and girls, and girls and boys, that 
now, really, you know — ” 

And as she spoke, she threw out her poor 
wrinkled hand with a gesture which was almost 
vulgar. 

And then the next day, on the contrary, she re¬ 
membered him perfectly, relating a thousand lit- 


172 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


tie things that he had done or said, and weeping 
for him all day long. 

Oh, those winter evenings ! — when they had no 
wood to make up the fire, when Gaud would sew 
on while she was almost freezing, to finish before 
she went to bed the work she brought home with 
her every evening. 

Grandmother Yvonne, the while, would sit 
quietly in the chimney-corner, with her feet on 
the last dying embers, her hands folded under 
her apron. But she had to be talked to in the 
beginning of the evening. 

“ You never have anything to tell me, my dear. 
Why not? In my time I knew many a girl of 
your age who knew how to talk; and it seems to 
me we would not be so gloomy here, we two, if 
you would only say something nice once in a 
while.” 

And then Gaud would relate whatever news she 
had heard in town, or would tell the old woman 
the names of the people she had met on the 
road, talking of things which were indifferent to 
herself, as in fact everything was now, stopping 
in the middle of her stories when she saw that 
the poor old woman had fallen asleep. 

There was nothing joyous, nothing young about 
the girl whose blooming youth longed so for 
youth like to itself. Her beauty would fade away 
in solitude and neglect. 

The sea-breeze which blew in at every crack 
made the flame of the lamp flicker; and the sound 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


173 


of the waves was heard there as plainly as if on 
board ship. With this sound was associated the 
sad thought of Yann which was always present to 
her, as the sea was his special domain ; and during 
the terrible nights of storm, when everything 
seemed let loose, and a mighty clamor reigned 
in the darkness outside, she thought of him witli 
anguish. 

Ever alone there with this sleeping old woman, 
Gaud sometimes was afraid, and peered into the 
dark comers, thinking of all those sailors, her an¬ 
cestors, who had slept in those beds in the wall 
and had been lost at sea on nights like these, and 
whose spirits might return. She did not feel at 
all protected from these visits by the presence of 
the old woman who was already so nearly one of 
them. Suddenly she would tremble all over from 
head to foot, as she heard coming from out the 
chimney-corner a little thread of a voice, thin 
and weak as if issuing from under ground, and in 
a mocking tone which froze her blood. The 
voice sang, — 

“ Pour la peche d’Islande, mon mari vient de partir; 

II m’a laissee sans le sou ; 

Mais trala, trala, la lou ! ” 

And then she felt that kind of terror one has 
in the presence of the insane. 

The rain kept pouring, pouring, like the con¬ 
tinual running of a fountain, trickling ceaselessly 
down the walls outside; and from leaks in the old 
mossy roof drops kept falling through, always in 


i74 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


the same spot, ceaselessly, monotonously, with 
the same melancholy drip, drip, drip, making 
wet places on the floor of the cottage, which was 
composed of rocks and earth beaten in with 
gravel and shells. She felt the water all around. 
It seemed to envelop and shut one in; and as the 
wind tormented it, and lashed and blew it into 
mist, making the dark night blacker still, it seemed 
to isolate even more completely from one another 
the lonely scattered cottages of Ploubazlanec. 

Sunday evenings were worse for Gaud than 
others, on account of the gayety that reigned else¬ 
where ; there were happy little parties even in 
these lonely hamlets on the shore, when one or 
another of the little cottages, shut up and lashed 
by the black rain, was always lighted up, and rang 
with the sound of sailors’ choruses. 

Inside, tables were arranged for drinking, fish¬ 
ermen were drying themselves by the smoky fire, 
the old fellows contentedly sipping their brandy 
and water, the young ones courting the girls, and 
all getting drunk and singing loud enough to 
raise the roof. And near to them, the sea, which 
might be their grave to-morrow, was singing too, 
and filling the night with her mighty voice. 

Sometimes on Sundays, companies of young 
men, coming out of the wine-shops, on returning 
from Paimpol would pass along the road near the 
door of the Moans’ cottage, — those who lived at 
the other end of the district toward Pors-Even. 
They went by very late, caring little about getting 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 175 

wet, being used to waves and storms. Gaud lis¬ 
tened to their shouts and songs, which were 
quickly drowned in the sound of the gale or the 
surf, trying to make out Yann’s voice, and trem¬ 
bling when she thought she recognized it. 

It was unkind of Yann not to come to see them 
again, and to lead such a gay life so soon after 
Sylvestre’s death; it was not like him. No; 
she certainly did not understand it. But in spite 
of everything she could not believe that he was 
quite heartless, and she could not forget him. 

The fact was that since his return he had led a 
very dissipated life. In the first place, they had 
made the usual run down into the Gulf of Gas¬ 
cogne, which is always a time of pleasure for the 
Icelanders, — a time when they have a little money 
in their pockets to spend as they choose (a small 
advance which their captains make them on their 
share of the fishing, which is not payable until 
the winter). 

They go down there every year to get salt 
among the islands; and he had taken up an old 
affair with a pretty dark girl of Saint-Martin-de- 
Pre, — a sweetheart of the autumn before. To¬ 
gether they wandered, during these last sunny 
days, among the purple vineyards, filled with the 
song of the larks, the perfume of ripe grapes, 
ocean pinks, and the sea odors from the beach; 
together they sang and danced during the moon¬ 
light evenings of the vintage in a gay and brief 
intoxication of love-making and new wine. And 


176 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


then the “ Marie ” having gone into Bordeaux, he 
found again in a cafe chantant, all decorated with 
gold, the pretty singer who had given him the 
watch, and lazily let himself be adored for another 
week’s time. 

When he came back to Brittany in October, he 
had stood up at the weddings of several of his 
friends, always dressed in his holiday clothes, and 
had often been drunk, after midnight, at the end 
of the balls which followed. Every week he had 
some new adventure, which the girls took pains to 
relate to Gaud with exaggerated details. 

Three or four times she had seen him at a dis¬ 
tance coming toward her, but always in time to 
avoid him ; and he also at these times turned and 
took his way across the fields. By a silent under¬ 
standing they avoided each other. 


CHAPTER XV. 

At Paimpol there lived a fat woman called 
Madame Tressoleur. She kept a wine-shop 
which was most popular among the Icelanders, 
in one of the streets which leads to the harbor, 
where captains and ship-owners came to engage 
their crews, picking out the best of the sailors 
as they drank together. 

She had been pretty once, and was still a great 
favorite with the fishermen, though now she had 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. I 7 7 

a mustache, the manners of a man, and a very 
sharp tongue. She looked like a sutler with 
a big white muslin cap; and she was religious 
after her own fashion, having been born a Bre- 
tonne. She kept the names of all the sailors in 
the country in her head, as if they were written 
on a register; she knew those who were good 
and those who were useless, and kept the run 
of what they earned and what each one was 
worth. 

One January day, having been sent for to make 
Madame Tressoleur a dress, Gaud went there to 
work in a room behind the saloon. 

The entrance to Dame Tressoleur’s shop was 
through a door with massive granite posts, which 
were set back under the first floor of the house, 
in an old-fashioned way; and when one opened 
the door there was always some gust blowing in 
from the street which slammed it to, and those 
who entered rushed in suddenly, as if cast up by 
the surf. The room was low and deep, white¬ 
washed, and adorned with pictures in gilt frames 
representing ships, sea-fights, and shipwrecks; 
and a china Virgin was set upon a bracket in 
a corner surrounded by artificial flowers. 

These old walls had listened to the sound of 
many a sailor’s ringing song, and had seen much 
boisterous gayety since the old days in Paimpol, 
from the exciting time of the pirates up to the 
present generation of Icelanders, who differ very 
little from their ancestors; and many a man’s 


12 


178 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

life had been staked and the contracts signed on 
those oaken tables in intervals of drunkenness. 

While she sewed on the dress, Gaud listened 
to the conversation which was going on, on the 
other side of the partition, between Dame Tresso- 
leur and two retired sailors who were sitting there 
drinking. 

These old salts were discussing a certain beau¬ 
tiful new boat which was just being fitted out in 
port. She would never be ready in time for the 
next season, this “ Leopoldine.” 

“ Oh, yes,” replied the hostess, " she will; she ’ll 
be ready sure enough. I can tell you all about 
it, for her crew was picked out here yesterday, — 
all the men of Guermeur’s old ‘ Marie,’ which they 
are going to sell to be broken up. Five young fel¬ 
lows were engaged just over there, before my eyes, 
at that table. And they signed with my pen, — 
so; and five fine fellows they are, I can tell you, — 
Laumec, Tugdual Caroff, Yvon Duff, young Keraez 
of Tr^guier, and that great Yann Gaos, who’s 
worth any three of them.” 

The “ Leopoldine ” — that name which she had 
just caught, of the boat which was to carry Yann 
away—struck into Gaud’s memory as if it had 
been ineffaceably stamped there with the blow of 
a hammer. And that evening, when she was back 
at Ploubazlanec, seated by the little lamp finishing 
her work, the name kept running in her head, and 
its very sound seemed to have something fore¬ 
boding in it. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 179 

The names of persons and also those of ships 
have a look and almost a character of their own; 
and the “ Leopoldine” — name new and unfamiliar 
to her, — haunted her with an almost unnatural 
persistency, becoming a sort of gloomy obsession. 
No; she had expected to see Yann going off 
again on the “ Marie,” which she had once visited 
and knew all about, and whose Virgin had pro¬ 
tected it during long years of dangerous voyages. 
And so this change to a new boat, this “ Leopol¬ 
dine,” made her the more apprehensive. But soon 
she began to say to herself that it made no differ¬ 
ence to her, and that nothing which concerned 
him could ever affect her again; and indeed, what 
could it matter to her whether he was on this 
ship or another, here or elsewhere? Was she 
more unhappy, or less, when he was in Iceland, 
and summer reigned again over the deserted 
cottages and these lonely, restless women, or 
when a new autumn came bringing the fishermen 
back again once more? It was all indifferent 
to her, — all equally without hope or joy. There 
was no longer any bond between them, or any¬ 
thing to bring them together, since he had even 
forgotten all about poor little Sylvestre. She 
must make up her mind that the one dream, 
the one desire of her life, was over forever; she 
must forget Yann and everything which concerned 
him, even this name of Iceland, which had such 
a melancholy charm for her ears on his account. 
She must drive away these thoughts, banish them 


l8o AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

completely, and tell herself it was finished, done 
with forever. 

She looked tenderly at the poor old woman as 
she lay asleep; she still had need of her, but she 
could not live much longer. And afterward, what 
use would it be for her to work, or even try to 
live? 

The west wind was rising outside ; and mingling 
with the sound of its distant sobbing, could be 
heard the quiet dropping of the rain from the 
roof. 

And then Gaud’s tears began to fall as she 
thought of her deserted state, — without father 
or mother, or any one to care for her, — flowing 
over her lips with a bitter taste, dropping silently 
on her work like a quiet summer rain which falls 
quickly and heavily from the overcharged clouds. 
And then, as she could see to work no longer, 
she folded up Dame Tressoleur’s ample corsage 
and tried to go to sleep, shivering as she threw 
herself into her poor, pretty bed; for it too was 
getting damper and colder every day, like every¬ 
thing else in the cottage. But as she was very 
young, even with all her tears she finally became 
warm and fell asleep. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


181 


CHAPTER XVI. 

Several dull weeks went by. It was already 
February; and the weather was quite fair and 
mild. 

Yann was just coming out of the ship-broker’s, 
where he had received his share of the last sea¬ 
son’s fishing, amounting to fifteen hundred francs, 
which he was taking to his mother, according to 
the custom of the family. The year had been a 
good one; and he was going home satisfied. 

Near Ploubazlanec he saw a group gathered at 
the edge of the road, — an old woman shaking her 
stick, and around her a crowd of mischievous 
little street-boys, making fun of her. It was 
Grandmother Moan, the dear grandmother whom 
Sylvestre had so loved, — all ragged and torn, and 
become one of those poverty-stricken old imbe¬ 
ciles whom the children run after in the street; 
and it made him feel terribly. 

The ragamuffins of Ploubazlanec had killed her 
cat; and she was shaking her stick at them in an¬ 
ger and despair. 

“ Oh, if my poor boy had only been here, 
you never would have dared to do it, you little 
scoundrels ! ” 

She had fallen, it appeared, as she ran after 
them; her cap was all on one side; her dress was 


182 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


covered with mud; and they were saying again 
that she was drunk, which often happens in Brit¬ 
tany to unfortunate old women such as she. 

Yann knew very well that it was not true, and 
that she had always been a respectable old wo¬ 
man, and never drank anything but water. 

“ You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,” he 
said angrily to the urchins, in a voice and tone 
which frightened them. 

And quick as a wink they took to their heels, 
ashamed and scared before the “ Great Gaos.” 
Gaud, who was just returning from Paimpol, car¬ 
rying her work for the evening, had seen from a 
distance that something was the matter, and came 
running up to find out what had happened to her 
grandmother, and what anybody could be doing 
to her, understanding it all when she saw her cat, 
which they had killed. 

She lifted her clear eyes to Yann, who did not 
turn his away. They did not think of avoiding 
each other this time; they only blushed very red, 
both of them, he as quickly as she, with the same 
flushing cheeks, and looked at each other a little 
startled at being so near together, but with no ill 
feeling, almost affectionately, united as they were 
in one common impulse of pity and protection. 

The school-children had long been looking out 
for a chance to kill the poor cat, because it had a 
black face and looked like an imp, although it was 
in fact a very good cat, which, if you regarded it 
closely, was really quite good-natured and playful. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 183 

They had stoned it to death, and it was a pitiable 
sight to behold. The poor old woman, still mum¬ 
bling out her threats, started off, all shaken and 
tottering, carrying her cat by the tail, like a rabbit. 

“ Oh, my poor boy, my poor boy ! if he were 
only alive, they’d never dare to treat me so, — 
no, never ! ” 

Her tears ran down the wrinkles of her poor 
old face, and her hands, with their big blue veins, 
trembled with excitement. 

Gaud stopped in the middle of the road to 
arrange the old woman’s cap, and tried to com¬ 
fort and console her. 

Yann was very indignant. How could children 
be so wicked as to treat a poor old woman so? 
The tears almost filled his own eyes for pity. 
Not for the cat, of course, for men of his kind 
rather like to torment animals, and have no sensi¬ 
bility for their sufferings; but his heart was filled 
with sympathy as he walked along behind the 
poor childish old woman, carrying her cat by the 
tail. He thought of Sylvestre, whom he had 
really loved so dearly, and of his grief if he could 
only have foreseen that she would end her days 
thus in wretchedness and derision. 

Gaud apologized for her as if she were respon¬ 
sible for her appearance. 

“ It’s because she has fallen that she is so 
dirty,” she said in a low voice. “ Her dress is 
no longer very new, it’s true, for we are not rich, 
Monsieur Yann; but I mended it myself yesterday, 


184 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 

and when I left her this morning I saw that she 
was clean and in order.” 

He looked long at her, much more touched, 
perhaps, by this simple little explanation than he 
could have been by glib phrases, tears, or re¬ 
proaches. They went on walking side by side as 
they neared the Moans’ cottage. He knew very 
well that there never had been anybody so pretty 
as she; but it seemed to him that her poverty and 
her mourning had made her more beautiful than 
ever. Her manner was graver, and her violet 
eyes still more reserved, and yet they seemed to 
look into one’s very soul. Her figure too was 
still more perfectly developed ; she would soon be 
twenty-three, and was in the full bloom of her 
beauty. And then she was dressed now more 
like the daughter of a fisherman, with her simple 
black gown and her little cap. And that distin¬ 
guished air she had, he could not tell where it 
came from; it was something innate and uncon¬ 
scious, with which he could no longer reproach 
her. Perhaps her dress, a little more carefully 
arranged than that of others, and defining her 
beautiful arms and shoulders, made the differ¬ 
ence. But no, it was more in her look and in 
her quiet voice. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


1*5 


CHAPTER XVII. 

Yann was really going along with them,— 
possibly all the way to their home. 

They all three walked along together; and it 
began to look comical to see them passing sol¬ 
emnly along, like the funeral cortege of the cat. 
The people at the doors smiled as they saw them. 
In the middle marched old Yvonne, carrying the 
cat, Gaud at her right, blushing and excited, and 
the great Yann on the left, walking along thought¬ 
fully, with his head in the air. But the poor old 
woman had suddenly calmed down on the way. 
Now that her cap was set straight, she felt more 
like herself; and without speaking, she began to 
look first at one and then at the other out of the 
corner of her eye, which had become quite clear 
again. 

Gaud said nothing more, for fear of giving 
Yann an opportunity of taking his leave. She 
would have wished to dwell on the memory of 
that pleasant look he had given her, to walk along 
with eyes closed to everything else, to walk thus 
at his side forever, lost in a dream; instead of 
which, they would reach their lonely, desolate home 
all too soon, and then it would be over forever. 

At the door there was one of those moments 
of indecision during which the heart seems to 


i86 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


stop beating. First Grandmother Yvonne walked 
in, without turning her head ; then Gaud followed 
her hesitatingly; then Yann came in also. 

He was under their roof for the first time in 
his life, — without any particular reason, prob¬ 
ably; for what reason could he have? As he 
crossed the threshold, he touched his hat, and as 
his eyes fell on the portrait of Sylvestre, with its 
little mourning wreath of black pearls, he went 
slowly up to it, as if approaching a tomb. 

Gaud remained standing, resting her hands on 
the table ; and as Yann began to look around, her 
eyes followed his as he silently noticed their poor 
surroundings. And in spite of its clean and re- 
pectable appearance, this place, where the two 
deserted women had taken shelter together, was 
poor indeed. 

Perhaps he might feel a little kindly pity for 
her at least, to see her brought almost to want 
in this time-worn, granite hut. There was noth¬ 
ing left of her past riches but the pretty white 
bed, and Yann’s eyes involuntarily turned to it. 

He did not speak; what was he staying for? 
The old grandmother, who was still sharp enough 
in her lucid moments, pretended not to no¬ 
tice him; and so they stood there, facing each 
other, mute and anxious, finally gazing into each 
other’s eyes as if to ask some momentous ques¬ 
tion. But the moments passed; and as each 
instant fled, their silence grew more and more 
constrained. And still more deeply and earnestly 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 187 

did they regard each other, as if in solemn wait¬ 
ing for something unspeakable which tarried long 
in coming. 

“ Gaud,” said he, in a low, earnest voice, “ if 
you are still willing — ” What was he going to 
say? Had he made up his mind suddenly, as 
usual, and as he stood there taken some great 
resolution which he hardly dared express? 

“ If you are still willing — The fish have sold 
well this season, and I have a little money 
ahead — ” 

If she was still willing? What was he asking 
of her? Had she heard aright? She was struck 
dumb by all she felt his words implied. 

And old Yvonne, over in her corner, lis¬ 
tened, for she thought she heard happiness draw 
nigh. 

“ We might get married, Mademoiselle Gaud, 
if you are still willing.” 

And then he waited for her reply, which came 
not. What was preventing her from uttering that 
“Yes”? He was surprised and anxious, and 
she saw it. Leaning with her two hands on the 
table, she ha3 turned perfectly white, and spoke 
not, and with her drooping eyes looked lovely, 
but almost fainting. 

“Well, Gaud, why don’t you answer?” said 
the old woman, who had risen and came toward 
them. “ You see, Monsieur Yann, it has sur¬ 
prised her. You must excuse her; she will think 
about it, and answer you by and by. Sit down. 


i88 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


Monsieur Yann, and take a glass of cider with 
us.” 

But no; Gaud could not reply. No words 
would come to her in her rapture. It was true, 
then, that he was good, and that he did have a 
heart. She had found him again,— her real Yann 
such as she never had ceased to believe him, in 
spite of his relentlessness, his rude refusal, in 
spite of everything. Long time he had disdained 
her; now he accepted her, — now that she was 
poor, that was doubtless his idea. He had had 
some notion which she would know of by and by. 
At this moment she did not think of calling him 
to account, or of reproaching him, for her two 
years of unhappiness. And besides, it was lost 
and forgotten in an instant, in the delicious whirl¬ 
wind of emotion which swept over her life. She 
still spoke no word, only telling him her adora¬ 
tion with her swimming eyes, which looked deep 
into his, while the great tears began to fall down 
her cheeks. 

“ So ! God bless you, my children ! ” said 
Grandmother Moan; “and I am very grateful 
to him, for now I am glad that I have lived to 
be so old, to have seen this before I die.” 

There they stood, still facing each other, with 
clasped hands, finding no words with which to 
speak to each other, — knowing nothing sweet 
enough, no phrase to express their feelings, none 
which they deemed worthy to break that exqui¬ 
site silence. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 189 

“ Kiss each other, at least, my children. Why ! 
they don’t say a word. Dear me ! what queer chil¬ 
dren I have, to be sure ! Come, Gaud, say some¬ 
thing to him, my dear. In my time, it seemed 
to me, we kissed each other when we were en¬ 
gaged.” 

Yann took off his cap, as if seized with some 
unaccustomed feeling of respect, before bending 
to kiss Gaud; and it seemed to him that it was 
the first real kiss he ever had given in his life. 
She also kissed him, with all her heart, pressing 
her fresh young lips to the sun-tanned cheek of 
her lover. And from between the stones of the 
wall the cricket chirped up its merry song of 
happiness, and this time, by chance, it was right. 
And the poor little picture of Sylvestre seemed 
to smile on them from out its mourning wreath. 
Everything seemed to be suddenly revived and 
rejuvenated in the lifeless cottage. The silence 
was filled with unuttered music; even the pale 
winter’s twilight which fell in through the window 
seemed like some magic light. 

“ So it will be after he gets back from Iceland, 
I suppose, dear children.” 

Gaud bent her head. Iceland, the “ Leopol- 
dine,” she had forgotten those terrors in her way. 
“ Gets back from Iceland ! ” Oh, how long it 
would seem, — one more whole summer of anxious 
waiting ! 

And Yann, tapping the ground rapidly with his 


I 90 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


foot, seemed suddenly to be in a great hurry too, 
and was counting up very fast, to see if by hasten¬ 
ing things along there would not be time for 
them to get married before he left. So many 
days to get out the papers, so many days for 
publishing the banns in church. Yes, that would 
only bring them up to the 20th or 25 th for the 
wedding, and then, if nothing interfered, there 
still would be one whole week for them to be 
together. 

“ The first thing I must do is to go and tell my 
father,” he said with as much haste as if the very 
moments of their lives had become measured and 
precious. 






PART IV. 

CHAPTER I. 

the Breton country lovers always like 
to sit outdoors at night-fall on the 
benches by the cottage doors. 

Yann and Gaud followed this cus¬ 
tom too, and every night at the door of the Moan 
cottage on an old granite bench they sat together 
making love. 

Others have the springtime, the shadows of the 
trees, mild evenings, and flowering roses. They 
had nothing but these February twilights falling 
over a sea-girt land of rocks and furze. No green 
branches waved above and around them; there 
was naught but the mighty heavens filled with 
floating mists, and for flowers, brown seaweeds 
which the fishermen dragged up over the path as 
they brought their nets up from the beach. 

The winters are not severe in this part of the 
world, which is warmed by the Gulf Stream, but 
still the twilights were very often damp and chilly, 











192 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


and an imperceptible moisture gathered upon 
their shoulders. 

They lingered there nevertheless, being quite 
content; and the old bench, which had seen a 
century pass by, was not astonished at this love- 
making, having seen many another like it. From 
generation to generation it had heard the same 
sweet words from the lips of the young, and had 
seen these same lovers returning later, tottering 
old men and women, to sit in this same place, 
but always in the daytime, to catch a breath of 
air, and warm themselves in their last sunshine. 
Once in a while Grandmother Moan would put 
her head out of the window to have a look at 
them, not because she was curious, but out of 
affection, just for the pleasure of seeing them, 
and also to try to persuade them to come in. 
She would say, “You will catch cold, my dear 
children, and be ill. Dear sakes ! I’d just like 
to know if you think it’s sensible, staying out so 
late? ” 

Cold ! were they cold ? Did they feel anything 
beyond the happiness of being together? People 
passing along the road at evening heard the 
slight murmur of two voices, mingled with the 
sound of the waves at the foot of the cliffs below. 

Gaud’s clear voice alternating with Yann’s, 
which had sweet and caressing tones in its lower 
notes, made very harmonious music. They could 
see also their two silhouettes thrown out against the 
granite wall behind them ; first the white of Gaud’s 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


193 


cap, and then all her slender figure in her black 
gown, and beside her the great square shoulders 
of her lover. 

Above them rose the dwarfed roof of the cot¬ 
tage, and back of all was the dim twilight and 
the colorless emptiness of sea and sky. 

They finally came in, however, and sat down in 
the chimney-place, where old Yvonne, fast asleep, 
with her head fallen over on her breast, did not 
disturb them much. They began to talk together 
in a low voice, for they had two years of silence 
to make up for, and must make haste with their 
courtship, as it was to be so brief. 

They had arranged to live with Grandmother 
Yvonne, who had left them the cottage in her will, 
and for the present were compelled to put off 
their project of improving and beautifying this 
poor nest of theirs until Yann’s return from 
Iceland. 


CHAPTER II. 

The lovers were amusing themselves one even¬ 
ing, telling over the thousand little things that she 
had done, or that had happened to him since their 
first meeting; and he spoke of the dresses she had 
worn, and different fetes she had been to. She 
listened to him in amazement. How could he 
have known all that ? Who would have imagined 

13 



194 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


that he would notice such things or remember 
them? And he, smiling, put on a mysterious air, 
and related still further little details, — things 
which she herself had almost forgotten. 

Now she listened without interrupting him, in 
the sudden rapture which had taken complete 
possession of her, beginning to understand what 
it all meant. He had loved her all that time 
himself! She had been- his constant thought, 
and he was now innocently confessing it to her. 
So what could have been the matter? Why had 
he so neglected her, and made her suffer so ? 

This mystery, which he had promised to ex¬ 
plain to her, was always there; but he always had 
avoided the explanation with an embarrassed man¬ 
ner and a little enigmatical smile. 


CHAPTER III. 

They went to Paimpol, one pleasant day, with 
Grandmother Yvonne, to buy the wedding dress. 

Among the pretty gowns which Gaud had had 
before, there were several which could have well 
been arranged for the occasion, without any 
necessity of buying another. But Yann wanted 
to make her a present of it; and she had not 
tried too much to prevent him, for he thought 
that for her to have a dress which he had given 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 195 

her, bought and paid for with the money he had 
earned by fishing, would make her seem already 
a little like his wife. 

They determined upon a black dress, — as 
Gaud was not yet out of mourning for her 
father. But Yann did not find anything pretty 
enough among the stuffs spread out before him. 
He was a little haughty with the shopkeepers; 
and he whom nothing ever had induced to go into 
the shops of Paimpol before was now interested 
in everything, even in the way the dress was 
to be made, and wanted deep bands of velvet 
put on it to make it still more beautiful. 


CHAPTER IV. 

One evening, as Yann and Gaud were sitting on 
their stone bench, in the solitude of the cliff, under 
the gathering twilight, their eyes fell by chance 
on a thorn-bush — the only one around — which 
was growing between the rocks by the side of the 
road. In the half light, it seemed to them that 
they could see little white buds on it. “ It looks 
as if it were in flower,” said Yann. 

And they went up to make sure. And in fact, 
it was all in blossom. Not being able to see 
very clearly, they felt it with their fingers, to 
make sure of the presence of the wee flowers, 



196 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 

which were all damp with the mist. And then 
came the first early feeling of the spring; and 
at the same time it struck them that the days 
had become longer, that the air was milder, and 
the nights less dark. 

But how far in advance this bush was ! nowhere 
in the country on any roadside was there another 
like it. No doubt it had bloomed expressly for 
them, for their love’s holiday. 

“Come, we must pick some of the flowers,” 
said Yann. And fumbling about in the dark, he 
made up a bouquet with his great hands, carefully 
cutting off the thorns with his big fisher’s knife, 
which he carried in his belt, and then he fastened 
it on Gaud’s dress. 

“ There! You look just like a bride,” he 
said, stepping back to see how it became her, 
notwithstanding the darkness. 

Below them, the calm sea rippled quietly over 
the pebbles on the beach, with a little intermit¬ 
tent sound, like the regular breathing of one 
asleep. She seemed indifferent, or even favorable, 
to this courtship which was going on so near her. 

The days seemed long to them while waiting 
for the evenings; and then, when they separated 
on the stroke of ten, they were a little sad because 
the evenings were so soon ended. 

They had to hurry about the marriage papers, 
and everything else, for fear of not being ready in 
time, and so letting their happiness escape them 
till the autumn, in the uncertain future. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


I 97 


This courtship of theirs, carried on at night in 
this melancholy spot, to the continual sound of 
the sea, and with an almost feverish thought of 
the flight of time, came to have a strange and 
almost solemn character. 

They were different from other lovers, graver 
and less tranquil in their love. 

He would never tell her what he had had 
against her all these two years; and after he had 
left her in the evening the mystery tormented 
her. Still, he loved her dearly; she was sure of 
that. 

It was true that he had loved her from the first, 
but not as he did now. It seemed to have filled 
his heart and mind ever fuller and fuller, like the 
tide which rises higher and higher until it covers 
everything. He had never known before what 
it was to love anybody in that way. Once in 
a while he would throw himself almost at full 
length along the bench beside Gaud, putting his 
head on her knees like a child, to be caressed, 
and then he would get up again very quickly, for 
propriety’s sake. And he loved to throw himself 
on the ground at her feet, lying there quietly with 
his head on the edge of her dress. He adored 
that sacred something about her which was her 
soul, which showed itself in the pure and tranquil 
sound of her voice, in the expression of her 
smile, and in her beautiful clear gaze. 


198 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


CHAPTER V. 

One rainy evening Yann and Gaud were sitting 
side by side in the chimney-corner, Grandmother 
Yvonne opposite them asleep. The dancing 
flames of the wood-fire threw great shadows of 
them up and down, across the blackened ceiling. 

They were speaking very low, as lovers do; 
but this evening there were long embarrassed 
pauses in their conversation. Yann particularly 
said almost nothing, but hung his head, half smil¬ 
ing, trying to avoid Gaud’s eyes. 

It was because she had been plying him all 
the evening with questions about this mystery 
which he could not be made to explain; and this 
time he found himself in close quarters. She was 
too bright and too determined to find out all 
about it; no pretext would avail him this time. 

“ Did you hear unkind things said about me ? ’ ’ 
she asked. 

He tried to reply, “ Yes.” Unkind things? 
Oh, yes! he had heard plenty of things said 
about her in Paimpol and in Ploubazlanec. 

She asked “ What ? ” He was embarrassed and 
did not know what to say, and then she knew 
directly that it must be something else. 

“ Was it the way I dressed, Yann? ” 

Yes, that had had something to do with it; 
she was too well dressed at one time for the wife 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 199 

of a simple fisherman. But finally he had to 
confess that it was not that either. 

“Was it because at one time we were con¬ 
sidered to be rich? You were afraid of being 
refused ? ” 

“ Oh, no, not that.” 

He made this reply with such an innocent con¬ 
fidence in himself that Gaud was amused; and 
then there was another pause, during which the 
sobbing sound of the wind and the waves could 
be heard outside. 

And while she looked earnestly at him an idea 
slowly dawned upon her, and her expression began 
to change. 

“ It was nothing of that kind, Yann; then what 
was it? ” she said, suddenly looking him straight 
in the eyes with an irresistible smile, as if she had 
found out what it was. 

And then he turned away his head and laughed. 
So it was this, — she had found it out! — he could 
give her no reason, because he had none and 
never had had any. It was simply because he 
had made up his mind that he would not (as Syl- 
vestre had formerly told her), that was all. And 
then they had teased him about this Gaud. 
Everybody — his parents, Sylvestre, his mates, 
even Gaud herself—had tried to persuade him 
to it. 

He had begun by saying No, — obstinately, No, 
but always keeping in the bottom of his heart the 
idea that some day when nobody was expecting 


200 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


it, it would certainly end by being Yes. And it 
was on account of this childishness of her Yann 
that Gaud had pined away in loneliness two long 
years, and had longed that she might die. 

After the first impulse, which was to laugh a 
little in the confusion of being caught, Yann 
looked at Gaud with serious honest eyes, which 
in their turn were earnestly questioning her. If 
she would only forgive him ! he was so very sorry 
now, that he had caused her so much pain, and 
would she pardon him? 

“ It’s my way, Gaud,” said he; “ at home, 
with my parents, it’s the same thing. Sometimes 
when I get an obstinate fit, I stay angry with them 
a whole week, hardly speaking a word to any¬ 
body. But I love them just the same; and I 
always end by doing just what they want, as if I 
were a child of ten. If you only knew what an 
idea it had been of mine, not to marry. But it 
could not have lasted very long any way, Gaud, 
I assure you.” 

If she would only forgive him ! She felt the 
loving tears come into her eyes, and the last rem¬ 
nant of her old grief vanished with this confession. 
And besides, without all that former suffering the 
present would not have been so joyful; and now 
that it was over, she was almost glad to have had 
that time of trial. Now everything was cleared 
up between them, in an unexpected way, it was 
true, but completely; there was no longer any 
cloud between their two souls. He drew her 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


201 


into his arms, and they rested so, their heads 
together and her cheek laid on his, having no 
need to explain anything more or to say another 

word. 


CHAPTER VI. 

It was yet six days before the fishermen were 
to set sail for Iceland. The wedding procession 
was returning from the church of Ploubazlanec, 
blown about by a furious wind, under a black and 
lowering sky. 

They were very handsome, both of them, walk¬ 
ing along arm in arm, like sovereigns, at the 
head of their procession, as if lost in a dream. 
Calm, reserved, and grave, they seemed to see 
nothing about them and to be exalted above this 
mundane sphere. And it seemed as if even the 
wind respected them, for all behind them the cor¬ 
tege was one merry disorder of laughing couples, 
blown about by the great gusts from the west. 

There were many young persons among them 
for whom life was just beginning; and some 
were already gray, but they smiled nevertheless, 
as they remembered their own weddings and 
their early years. 

Grandmother Yvonne was there, following along, 
very much out of breath, but almost happy, on 
the arm of an old uncle of Yann, who was mak- 



202 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


ing gallant, old-fashioned speeches to her. She 
wore a beautiful new cap which they had bought 
her for the occasion, and the same little shawl, — 
dyed again for the third time, — black now on 
account of Sylvestre. 

And the wind without distinction buffetted all 
these invited guests; and petticoats were lifted, 
and dresses blown about, and hats and bonnets 
flew off in the gusts. 

At the door of the church the bride and bride¬ 
groom had bought, according to the custom, little 
bouquets of artificial flowers to complete their 
costume. Yann had pinned his carelessly upon 
his broad chest; but he was one of those people 
who can wear anything. As for Gaud, however, 
there was an air of distinction even in the way 
these poor, coarse flowers were arranged upon her 
beautifully fitting gown, which was made, as in for¬ 
mer days, so as to set off her exquisite figure. 

The fiddler, who was leading the procession, 
exasperated by the wind, was playing recklessly; 
and his tunes, coming to the ears in gusts amid 
the noise of this mighty gale, seemed a droll little 
music, shriller than the cry of a sea-gull. 

All Ploubazlanec had come out to see them. 
This marriage was a thing everybody was deeply 
interested in, and came from all the country 
around to see. 

At the crossways there were groups of people 
waiting to see them pass. Almost all the Ice¬ 
landers, friends of Yann, were stationed there. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 203 

They saluted the bride and bridegroom as they 
went by, and Gaud replied with a slight incli¬ 
nation of her head, with the quiet grace of a 
young lady; and she was admired all along the 
route. 

All the hamlets round about, even the most 
wretched and remote, including those in the for¬ 
ests of the back country, were emptied of their 
maimed and lame, the simple and the insane. 

All these were stationed along the -roadside, 
playing on accordions and hurdy-gurdies, and 
holding out their hands, their bowls, or their 
caps to receive the alms which Yann threw to 
them with a grand and generous air, and Gaud 
with a gracious smile like a queen. There were 
some very old beggars among them, with white 
hair covering their empty heads; and as they 
crouched in the hollows of the road, they looked 
of the same color as that earth from which they 
seemed never to have quite emerged, and into 
which they would so soon return, without ever 
having known a thought. Their wandering eyes 
disturbed one like the mystery of their useless 
and abortive lives, as they looked on, without 
understanding, at this festival of full and mag¬ 
nificent life which was passing by. 

They went on past the hamlet of Pors-Even 
and the Gaos’ house, for they were going, as was 
the custom of newly wedded people in Ploubaz- 
lanec, to the Chapel of the Trinity, which is situ¬ 
ated, as it were, at the very end of the Breton 


204 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

country. At the foot of the last and most ex¬ 
treme point of the cliffs the chapel stands on a 
pedestal of low rocks, very near to the water, as 
if it already belonged to the sea. To get down 
to it they had to take a goat-path winding down 
among great blocks of granite ; and the wedding 
procession spread out over the slope of this lonely 
cape among the rocks, their merry and gallant 
speeches being lost in the noise of wind and waves. 

It was impossible to reach the chapel. In such 
stormy weather the sea with its great breakers 
came up too far for them to venture, and they 
could see the white crests dashing up high and 
covering the path as they fell. 

Yann, who went ahead, with Gaud leaning on 
his arm, drew back first before the raging water. 
Behind him, the procession, scattered among the 
rocks, which were here cut out like an amphi¬ 
theatre, stopped short; and it seemed as if he 
had come to present his wife to the sea, which 
seemed to receive the bride with an angry face. 
As he turned around, he saw the fiddler perched 
up on a gray rock trying to grind out the tune of 
a country dance between the blasts. 

“ Put up your music, my friend,” he said to 
him ; “the sea is getting ahead of you.” 

At the same time a heavy driving rain, which 
had been holding off since morning, began to 
pour down; and that was the signal for a great 
rush, as with shouts of laughter they scrambled 
up the high cliff and fled into the Gaos’ house. ' 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


205 


CHAPTER VII. 

The wedding feast was held at the house of 
Yann’s parents, because Gaud’s cottage was so 
poor and so small. 

In the big new room upstairs, a table was set 
for twenty-five people, who were to sit down with 
the happy pair, — brothers and sisters, Cousin 
Gaos the pilot, Guermeur, Keraez, Yvon Duff, 
all the crew of the old “ Marie,” who were now on 
the “ Leopoldine,” four very pretty bride’s-maids, 
with their hair wound in coils over their ears like 
the ancient Byzantine empresses, and caps made 
in the new fashion for young girls, like a sea- 
shell; four groomsmen, too, all of them Ice¬ 
landers, fine-looking fellows with bright hand¬ 
some eyes. 

Below, of course, there was eating and cooking 
going on. The whole procession was gathered 
there quite in confusion; and the women who 
had been hired at Paimpol to help at the feast 
quite lost their heads before the great chimney- 
place, filled up with skillets and boilers. Yann’s 
parents would have liked a richer woman for 
their son, of course. But Gaud was now thought 
a good and brave young woman, and then to 
offset her lost fortune, she was the most beautiful 


206 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


girl in the country; and it pleased them to see 
the husband and wife so well matched. 

And the old father said jokingly over his soup, 
“ We ’ll have more Gaoses than ever now, and 
there was certainly no lack of them in Paimpol 
before.” And counting on his fingers, he ex¬ 
plained to an uncle of the bride how many there 
were of that name. His father, who was the 
youngest of nine brothers, had had twelve chil¬ 
dren, who had all married relatives, and that had 
made a lot of Gaoses, in spite of those who had 
been lost in Iceland. 

“ And I also,” he said, “ married a Gaos, and 
we two have had fourteen.” 

And at the thought of this colony, he laughed 
and shook his head. 

Lord ! he had had enough trouble to bring 
them up, his fourteen little Gaoses; but things 
were clearing up now, and then, besides, the ten 
thousand francs from the wreck had made them 
really very comfortable. 

Very gayly too, Neighbor Guermeur related his 
adventures during his military service, — stories 
of China, the Antilles, and Brazil, which made the 
young men who were to go there some day open 
their eyes. 

One of his best stories was about a time on 
board the “ Iphigenie,” when they were filling the 
casks with wine in the evening just at dusk, and 
the funnel through which it was poured in sprung 
a leak; and then, instead of telling of it, they be- 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 207 

gan to drink at the hole, and they kept it up two 
hours, until they could hold no more, and finally 
the whole gun-deck was flooded, for everybody 
was drunk. 

And then the old salts who were sitting at the 
table laughed their merry boyish laugh and said 
with a touch of mischief, “ There is a great deal 
of talk against the service, but it’s only there that 
you get such a chance as that.” 

Out of doors, the weather was getting no better; 
on the contrary, the wind and the rain were fairly 
raging in the black darkness. In spite of all the 
precautions which had been taken, there were some 
who got nervous about their boats anchored in 
the harbor, and began to talk about going off to 
see about them. Notwithstanding this, there was 
another sound, much pleasanter to hear, which 
came up from below, where the young ones of 
the party were taking supper together, — shouts 
of joy and laughter from little boys and girls, all 
cousins of Yann, who were beginning to get very 
merry over the cider. 

They had boiled and roasted meats for supper, 
chickens, all kinds of fish, omelets and pan¬ 
cakes. They talked about fishing and smuggling, 
and discussed all sorts of ways for tricking the 
coast-guards-men, who, as everybody knows, are 
the bom enemies of fishermen. 

Upstairs, at the table of honor, they began to 
tell funny tales ; and a fire of stories flew about in 
Breton dialect, among these men, who had all sailed 


208 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


around the world in their time. And then all of 
a sudden one of Yann’s little brothers, with rosy 
face and bright eyes, a future Icelander, became 
very ill from having drunk too much cider, and 
had to be taken out very quickly indeed. This 
interrupted the talk; and as the wind was blowing 
now decidedly too hard, some of them broke off 
their stories in the middle and started off to look 
after their boats. The wind howled in the chim¬ 
ney like the tortured souls of the damned, and 
every now and then with terrific force shook the 
whole house on its stone foundations. 

“ It seems as if it was angry because we are 
amusing ourselves,” said their cousin the pilot. 

“ No, it’s the sea who is angry,” replied Yann, 
looking at Gaud, “ because I promised to marry 
her.” 

These two sat together, hand in hand, lost in a 
dreamy languor, whispering low, as if alone in the 
midst of all this gayety. And sometimes too 
Yann was sad, at the thought of Sylvestre ; it had 
been arranged that there should be no dancing 
on his account and because of Gaud’s father. 
They had reached dessert; and pretty soon the 
songs would begin. But first, there were pray¬ 
ers to be said for those of the family who were 
dead. At these wedding feasts this religious 
duty is never omitted; and when Father Gaos 
was seen rising from his seat and uncovering 
his white head, a silence fell on all. “This,” he 
said, “ is for Guillaume Gaos, my father.” And 


{ 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 209 

making the sign of the cross, he began the 
Latin prayer: — 

“ Pater noster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen 
tuum.” 

The silence of a church now fell on all in the 
house, even over the merry tables of the children, 
and all under the roof were repeating in spirit 
the same eternal words. 

“ This is for Yves and Jean Gaos, my brothers, 
lost in the Iceland sea; this is for Pierre Gaos, 
my son, wrecked with the ‘Zelis.’ ” And then, 
when all the Gaoses had been prayed for, he 
turned toward Grandmother Moan and said, “ This 
is for Sylvestre Moan.” And he recited another 
prayer, while Yann’s tears fell. 

“ Sed libera nos a malo. Amen.” 

And then the songs began, — songs learned at 
service in the forecastle, where there are always, 
as every one knows, plenty of very fine singers. 

“ Un noble corps, pas moins, que celui de zouaves ; 
Mais chez nous les braves 
Narguent le destin, 

Hurrah I hurrah 1 vive le vrai marin ! *’ 

The couplets were recited by one of the grooms¬ 
men in a rhythmic way which was very taking, 
and then a lot of good voices took up the 
chorus. 

But the wedded pair heard all this only as if it 
came from a distance, and spoke lower and lower 
to each other, as they still sat hand in hand; and 
U 


210 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


Gaud often bent her head with a look of love and 
fear in her beautiful eyes. 

And now their cousin the pilot was going 
around the table, serving a certain special wine 
of his own, which he had brought over with num¬ 
berless precautions, holding the bottle carefully 
in a horizontal position, as he said it must not be 
shaken up; and then he told its history. 

One day while he was fishing, he saw a hogs¬ 
head floating alone out at sea; it was impossible 
to tow it in, as it was too large. So they broke 
into it as it lay in the water, and filled every jug 
and pan they had on board with the wine. Even 
then they could not empty it; so they signalled 
to the other pilots and fishermen, and all the 
sails in sight gathered around the find. 

“ And there was more than one who was tipsy, 
I can tell you, when we got home that evening to 
Pors-Even.” 

Outside, the wind still kept up its frightful up¬ 
roar. 

Downstairs the children were dancing round 
dances and jigs. Some of the smallest ones, 
nearly all of them little Gaoses, had indeed been 
put to bed; but the others were making a great 
noise, led by little Fantec 1 and the small Laumec , 3 
who were wanting actually to run and jump out¬ 
doors, and opening the door every moment, let 
in furious blasts which blew out the candles. 


1 Breton for Francis. 


2 Breton for William. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


2 11 


The pilot went on to finish the story of the 
wine. He had had forty bottles for his share, 
and he begged them to be sure not to speak of 
it, for fear of Monsieur le Commissaire of the de¬ 
partment, who might make trouble for him be¬ 
cause he had not made a declaration of the wreck. 
“ And I can tell you,” he went on, " he would 
have taken good care of these bottles; for if we 
could have drawn them off clear, it would have 
been a capital good wine, for there ’s more of the 
real juice of the grape in it than in all the cellars 
of all the wine-shops in Paimpol.” 

Who knows where it had come from, this ship¬ 
wrecked wine ? It was strong, high-colored, very 
much mixed with sea-water, and still retained a 
sharp, salty taste. It was nevertheless found very 
good, and several bottles of it were emptied. 
And then their heads began to turn a little; their 
voices got a little thick; and the boys began to 
kiss the girls. 

The singing went on gayly; but there was very 
little more comfortable enjoyment of the feast, 
and the men looked anxiously at one another, on 
account of the storm which was rising all the 
time. The wind was howling outside worse than 
ever; it was now one single, continuous roar, 
swelling threateningly louder and louder, as if 
uttered by the open throats of thousands of en¬ 
raged beasts. 

It seemed also as if one heard the heavy boom 
of great guns in the distance; that was the sea 


212 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


which was beating all along the coast of Plou- 
bazlanec. No, she certainly did not seem con¬ 
tent ; and Gaud felt frightened at this terrific 
music, which no one had commanded to play at 
their wedding. 

About midnight, during a lull in the storm, 
Yann rose quietly, and made a sign to his wife 
to come and speak to him. 

It was time for them to go home, he said. 
She blushed, and was confused to find that she 
had risen, and replied that it would be impolite 
to go away and leave the guests. 

“ No,” replied Yann ; “ Father gives us permis¬ 
sion ; we can go.” 

He drew her after him, and they quietly made 
their escape. 

And then they found themselves outside in 
the cold, in the furious gale, and the deep and 
stormy night; and hand in hand they started 
to run. From the heights of the cliff-path they 
felt rather than saw the mighty raging sea, 
whence all this clamor arose. And as they ran, 
bent over against the gale, the rain cutting them 
full in their faces, they were sometimes obliged 
to turn around and cover their mouths with their 
hands, to get back their breath, blown away by 
the wind. 

First he took her by the waist, almost carrying 
her, to keep her from dragging her dress and 
spoiling her pretty slippers in the water which 
was streaming over the ground, and then he lifted 


\ 

AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 2 13 

her right up on his shoulders, and went on run¬ 
ning faster than ever. 

No, he had not believed that he could love 
her so. And to think that she was twenty-two 
and he nearly twenty-eight, and that they might 
have been married and as happy as they were 
to-night for at least two years ! 

Finally they arrived at home, at their poor little 
cottage, with its damp floor and its thatched and 
mossy roof; and they lit a candle which was twice 
blown out by the wind. 

Old Grandmother Moan, who had been taken 
home before the singing began, had been in bed 
for the last two hours in her cupboard with the 
doors shut. They went up quietly, and looked 
at her through the crack of the door, to bid her 
good-night if by chance she was awake. But 
they saw that the old face was quiet and her eyes 
shut, and that she was asleep, or pretended to be, 
so as not to disturb them. And then they felt 
themselves alone together. 

And they trembled as they clasped each other’s 
hands. He bent over to kiss her lips, and Gaud 
turned her face and pressed her lips to Yann’s 
cheek, which was quite cold from the wind. 

The cottage was very low and very poor, and 
it was very cold. Ah, if Gaud had only re¬ 
mained rich as she once had been, what pleasure 
she would have had in arranging a pretty room, 
far different from this one, with its bare earthen 
floor ! She was hardly yet accustomed to these 


214 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

rude granite walls, and to the rough look of every¬ 
thing; but her Yann was there with her, and all 
was changed and transfigured by his presence. 
She had no consciousness of anything but him. 

And now their lips had met, and she no longer 
turned away her own. Clasped tight in each 
other’s arms, they stood mute and lost in the 
ecstasy of that long kiss, being unable to disen¬ 
gage their clinging arms, knowing nothing, desir¬ 
ing nothing, more than that embrace. 

Finally she freed herself in sudden confusion 
and said, — 

“ No, Yann, Grandmother Yvonne might see 
us ! ” 

But he, with a smile, again sought the lips of 
his wife, and quickly, though still without leav¬ 
ing that exquisite mouth, put his arm out behind 
him, and with the back of his hand, put out the 
light. 

Around and about them on this their wedding 
night, the same invisible orchestra still played on. 

Hou, hou ! hou, hou ! The wind now uttered 
its cavernous roar with trembling rage, and then 
again repeated its menace close to their ears, as 
if with a refinement of malice, with little shrill 
sounds, like the piercing shriek of an owl. And 
there was the great tomb of sailors near at hand, 
rolling, devouring, and beating against the cliffs 
with its dull, heavy blows; and one night or 
another, he would be there struggling with the 
frenzy of its black and icy waters, and they knew 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


2I 5 


it. What did it matter? for the moment they 
were on land, sheltered from all this futile rage 
which only turned upon itself, and in the poor 
dark cottage, through which the wind was whis¬ 
tling, they gave themselves to each other, without 
a thought of danger or of death, spell-bound and 
intoxicated by the eternal magic of love / 


CHAPTER VIII. 

They were together for just six days. 

As the time drew near, preparations for the de¬ 
parture for Iceland occupied every one. Women 
were employed in piling salt for brine in the 
holds of the ships, and the men were getting the 
rigging in order; and at Yann’s house his mother 
and sisters were working from morning till night, 
at their “ sou’westers ” and oilskins and the ne¬ 
cessary outfit for the coming season. The weather 
was threatening; and the sea, under the breath of 
the equinox, was rough and troubled. 

Gaud went through these inexorable prepara¬ 
tions with anguish, counting the rapid hours of 
the day, as she waited for the evening, when 
work being over, she would have her Yann to 
herself. 

Would he always be going away thus, in the 
years that were to come ? 



2 l6 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


She hoped much that she would be able to 
discover some way of keeping him back, but now 
she did not dare to speak to him about it; never¬ 
theless, he loved her well. His feelings toward 
former sweethearts had been as nothing in com¬ 
parison with this, nothing like the tenderness and 
the trust of their love for each other. And what 
charmed and surprised Gaud was to find him so 
sweet, so like a child, — this great Yann, whom she 
had seen sometimes at Paimpol putting on such 
a disdainful manner with the girls. To her, on 
the contrary, he showed always the same courtesy, 
which seemed natural to him ; and she adored 
the pleasant smile he gave her whenever their 
eyes met. Among the Breton people, there is 
always a sentiment of innate respect for the 
dignity of the wife. And yet Gaud was a little 
fearful in her happiness; it was something she had 
so long despaired of that it seemed almost like 
a dream. And then, this love of Yann’s, — would 
it last? 

Sometimes she remembered his dissipated life 
of old, his fits of violence, and his adventures, 
and was afraid. Would he always show her this 
infinite tenderness and this gentle courtesy? 

Truly, six days of married life was as nothing for 
a love like theirs, — nothing but a little feverish 
advance on their life’s account, which might run 
on still for so many long years to come. They 
scarcely had time to see and talk to each other, 
and to understand that they really belonged to 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


217 


each other. All their plans for their life to¬ 
gether, their arrangements for housekeeping, and 
their hope of quiet happiness had to be put off 
until his return. 

Oh, in those years to come, she would keep 
him at any price from going again to that dread¬ 
ful Iceland ! 

But how was she going to manage it ? How 
would they live, — they who were both so poor? 
And then he was so attached to his seafaring life ! 

She tried two or three times, in spite of every¬ 
thing, to restrain him, and with all the powers of 
her will and heart and mind. To be the wife 
of an Iceland fisherman, to await the approach of 
spring with sadness, to pass each summer in pain¬ 
ful anxiety ! No, now that she adored him as 
she had never believed it possible that she could, 
she was seized with a terror which was too great 
to be endured, when she thought of those years 
to come. 

They had one spring day together, — one only. 
It was the day before he was to set sail; every¬ 
thing was in order on board, and Yann spent the 
whole day with her. They walked arm in arm 
together along the paths, like lovers, keeping 
close to each other and talking of a thousand 
things. 

And people smiled as they saw them pass and 
said, “ There’s Gaud and big Yann, of Pors-Even, 
who were married the other day.” 

It was early springtime, on this last day of 


218 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

theirs together, and it seemed something novel 
and strange to see the sudden calm and the 
usually stormy sky without a cloud. There was 
no wind from any quarter. The sea was mild, 
and was everywhere of the same light blue, and 
perfectly tranquil. The sun shone with a great 
white brilliancy; and the rude Breton country 
seemed to bathe itself in its radiance as in some¬ 
thing fine and rare, seeming to smile and awake 
to new life as far as the eye could reach. The 
air was deliciously mild and smelt of sum¬ 
mer ; one would have said that it had been 
stilled forever, and that there would never be 
any more dark days or storms. The capes 
and bays, over which the changing shadows of 
the clouds no longer floated, stood out clear in 
the sunlight with their great immovable lines; 
and they too seemed to repose in endless peace 
and calm. And it all seemed to make sweeter 
and more eternal the springtide of their love. 
On the roadside they saw already little early 
flowers, primroses and violets, but pale and with¬ 
out fragrance. 

When Gaud asked, — 

“ How long will you love me, Yann ? ” aston¬ 
ished, he replied, as he looked into her face with 
his beautiful honest eyes, — 

“ Why, always, Gaud.” 

And this word spoken so simply by these un¬ 
tutored lips seemed to express in its deepest 
significance the eternity of love. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


219 


She leaned upon his arm, pressing closely to 
his side, in the enchantment of her realized 
dream, still fearful, and feeling that he would 
soon fly away like some great sea-bird. To¬ 
morrow at wing on the ocean! and now for 
this once it was too late; she could do nothing 
to keep him back. 

From the cliff-paths where they were walking 
they could overlook the whole sea-coast, which 
spread out before them, apparently without a tree, 
but carpeted with low-growing furze and strewn 
with rocks. The fishermen’s huts, with their old 
quaint walls, stood out here and there among 
the rocks, with thatched roofs like high hunched 
backs, all green with new moss; and in the far 
distance lay the sea like some great hazy vision 
describing its mighty circle, and seeming to hold 
everything in its everlasting embrace. 

Gaud was amusing herself with telling him about 
the wonderful and astonishing sights of Paris, 
where she had lived ; but he very contemptuously 
declined to be interested. “ So far from the 
coast! ” he said, “ and so much land, — so much 
land, — why, that must be unhealthy. So many 
houses, so many people ! There must be all kinds 
of evil diseases in these cities. I don’t want to 
live there, — not I, — you may be sure.” 

And she smiled, astonished to see how much of 
the innocent child there was still left in this great 
fellow. 

Sometimes they plunged into hollows among 


220 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


the cliffs, where real trees were growing, seeming 
to cower there away from the ocean winds. Down 
there, there was no longer any view, but piles of 
dead leaves on the ground, while the air felt cold 
and damp. Sometimes the deep-cut path would 
wind along under the shadow of the trees ; and 
sometimes it would narrow down between the 
walls of some dark and lonely hamlet, sunken 
down and crumbling with age, sleeping in the 
depth of the hollow. And everywhere crucifixes 
rose high before them among lifeless branches, 
with their great wooden figures of Christ, moul¬ 
dering away like corpses, with endless grimaces 
of pain. 

And then the path would go up again, and once 
more they looked out upon the wide horizon, 
and breathed again the fresh air of the cliffs 
and the sea. 

Yann, in his turn, was telling her about Iceland, 
its pale summers, its endless days, and its oblique 
and never-setting suns. Gaud did not understand 
it very well, and made him explain. “ The sun 
goes all around, — all around,” he said, waving his 
outstretched arm around the distant circle of the 
blue waters. “ It always stays very low down, be¬ 
cause, you see, it has no force to rise ; at midnight 
it drags its edge a little in the sea, but soon 
gets up again and takes up the same round once 
more. Sometimes the moon appears on the other 
side of the sky; and then they both of them shine 
away, each on its own side, and you can hardly 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


221 


tell them apart, they look so much alike in that 
part of the world.” 

“ To see the sun at midnight! ” How far off 
it must be, this island of Iceland ! And the 
fiords, what are they? Gaud had read this word 
several times, together with the names of the dead 
inscribed in the chapel for shipwrecked sailors, 
and it seemed to her as if it must mean some¬ 
thing very unlucky. 

“ Fiords,” replied Yann, “are great bays, like 
this one here at Paimpol, only there are moun¬ 
tains all round them, so high, so high, that 
you can never see their tops on account of the 
clouds which cover them. A gloomy country 
enough, Gaud, I can assure you. Rocks and 
rocks and nothing but rocks, and the inhabitants 
of the island don’t even know what a tree is. In 
the middle of August, when we have done fish¬ 
ing, it is high time to be leaving, for then the 
nights begin, and they get longer very fast. 
The sun sets behind the earth and can’t rise 
up again; and then it’s night the whole winter 
through. 

“There’s a little cemetery there too,” he said, 
“on the shore near a fiord, quite like ours, for 
those from Ploubazlanec who may have died during 
the fishing season, or who have been lost at sea. 
It is consecrated ground just as much as here at 
Pors-Even ; and the people who are buried there 
have wooden crosses with their names on them 
just like ours. The two Goazdiou, of Ploubazlanec, 


222 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


are there, and also Guillaume Moan, Sylvestre’s 
grandfather.” 

And she seemed to see the little cemetery at 
the foot of the desolate cape, bathed in the pale 
pink light of the endless days, and then she thought 
of these same dead sailors, lying under the ice 
and the black shroud of those nights which are as 
long as winters. 

“And are you fishing the whole, whole time 
without ever resting?” she asked. 

“ The whole time ; and then there’s the sail¬ 
ing of the ship to see to. And the sea is not 
always so lovely off there. Lord ! how tired we 
are when evening comes ! we have an appetite 
for supper, I can tell you; some days we are 
fairly ravenous.” 

“ Do you never weary of it? ” 

“ Never,” he said with an air of conviction 
which gave her pain. “ On board, at sea, I never 
know how the time passes, never.” 

And then she bent her head with a deeper 
sadness, feeling more than ever conquered by 
the sea. 




PART V. 

CHAPTER I. 

the close of this one spring day which 
they had spent together, a feeling of 
winter came on at night-fall; and they 
went home to dine before a blazing 
fire of crackling branches. 

Their last meal together ! 

But they had still one whole night more to 
sleep in each other’s arms, and that knowledge 
still kept them from being sad. 

After dinner, outside on the road to Pors-Even, 
they found that the pleasant feeling of spring was 
not quite gone after all, for the air was still and 
almost mild, and a few remaining twilight gleams 
lingered over the land. 

They went to pay a visit to Yann’s parents for 
him to bid them good-by, and came home to go 
to bed in good time, as they both intended to rise 
at daybreak. 




















224 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


CHAPTER II. 

The quay at Paimpol, the next morning, was 
crowded with people. 

The Iceland boats had been leaving since the 
evening before, and with every tide a fresh lot 
put out to sea. 

This morning fifteen boats, including the “ Leo- 
poldine,” were to set sail; and the wives and 
mothers of the sailors were all there to see them 
off. 

Gaud was almost astonished to find herself 
there among them all, — to realize that she too 
had become the wife of an Icelander, and that 
the same fateful reason had brought her there. 
Her destiny had developed with such precipitous 
haste within the last few days that she had 
scarcely had time to comprehend it all; and in 
gliding irresistibly down the steep declivity of her 
fate, she had found herself arrived at the inexora¬ 
ble result which she must endure for the present, 
like all the rest who were already accustomed to 
it. She had never before witnessed these fare¬ 
wells; everything was new and unfamiliar. None 
of the women were in any way like her; and she 
felt lonely and strange. The fact that they had 
been accustomed to think of her as a lady still 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 225 

remained in their minds in spite of everything, 
and set her apart from them. 

The weather remained fine on this day of part¬ 
ing, only out at sea a heavy ground-swell, rolling 
in from the west, foretold bad weather; and in the 
distance the ocean which was awaiting them all 
could be seen breaking on the rocks outside the 
harbor. 

Around Gaud there were others, who like her 
were very pretty and very touching, with their 
eyes filled with tears ; and some, too, who were 
laughing and indifferent, and either heartless or, 
for the moment, not in love with any one. 

Old women were there, who, feeling the ap¬ 
proach of death, were weeping as they bade their 
sons good-by, and lovers kissing each other long 
and tenderly; some grizzled, weather-beaten 
sailors could be heard singing loudly to keep up 
their courage, while others went on board with a 
gloomy look as if starting to do a penance. Some 
poor fellows who had been tricked into signing 
an engagement while half drunk in some wine¬ 
shop were now treated roughly enough; and their 
own wives were helping the gendarmes to push 
them on board. 

Others who they had been afraid might give 
trouble on account of their tremendous strength, 
had been deliberately made drunk, and were being 
carried in wheelbarrows into the hold of the ship, 
where they were tumbled down like so many dead 
men. 

15 


226 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


Gaud was terrified when she saw them. With 
what sort of company was her Yann going to live ? 
And then what kind of a trade was this Iceland 
fishing, to begin in such a way, and to inspire 
these men with such aversion? 

But there were also some sailors who smiled, 
and who doubtless loved this life on the open sea 
and the fishing, just as Yann did. These were the 
good sailors, who carried themselves in a hearty, 
courageous way. If they were bachelors, they 
went off carelessly enough with a parting glance 
at the girls ; or if they were married men, they 
kissed their wives and little ones with a gentle 
sadness, hoping to return home with more money 
in their pockets. 

Gaud felt somewhat reassured when she saw 
that all those on board the “ Leopoldine ” were 
like this, and that this vessel really had a picked 
crew. 

The ships drew off in twos and fours, towed 
outside by tugs. And as they moved along, the 
sailors took off their caps and chanted in a loud 
voice the hymn to the Virgin, — “ Hail, Star of 
the Sea!” — and on the quay, women’s hands 
were waved in last farewells, and tears fell over 
the muslin strings of their caps. 

When the “ Leopoldine” had gone, Gaud 
walked along quickly toward the Gaos’ house; 
and after an hour and a half’s rapid walking along 
the coast by the familiar paths of Ploubazlanec, 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 227 

she found herself with her new relatives, off there 
at the other end of the district. 

The “ Leopoldine ” was to drop anchor outside 
the roadstead of Pors-Even, and was not really to 
set sail until evening; and so it was there that Yann 
and Gaud had arranged their last meeting, and in 
fact, he did come back to her in the yawl of his ship, 
came back for three hours to bid her good-by. 

On shore, away from the heavy swell, there was 
no change in the beautiful spring weather; and 
the sky was still of the same quiet blue. 

They started along the path, arm in arm, and 
it made them think of their lovely walk of the 
day before, only now they could no longer look 
forward to the night together; they walked aim¬ 
lessly along, turning back toward Paimpol, and 
soon they found themselves near home. Without 
thinking, their steps had insensibly brought them 
thither; and they went for just once more into 
their little cottage, where Grandmother Yvonne 
was amazed to see them reappearing together. 

Yann gave Gaud little directions in regard to 
different things he had left in the wardrobe, par¬ 
ticularly about his beautiful wedding suit, asking 
her to unfold it once in a while and hang it in the 
sun. On board men-of-war the sailors learn to 
be very particular about their things. And Gaud 
smiled as he made known his wishes; he could 
be very sure that everything that belonged to him 
would be kept and taken care of with all possible 
affection. But these little matters were quite 


228 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


secondary; they talked for the sake of talking, 
to divert each other. 

Yann was telling her how on board the “ Leo- 
poldine ” they had just been casting lots for the 
fishing-posts, and that he was very much pleased 
at having drawn one of the best; and she made 
him explain to her what that meant, as she knew 
almost nothing about his trade. 

“ You see, Gaud,” he said, “ on the deck of 
our ships holes are bored at certain intervals 
which we call 4 reel-holes; ’ and that’s where we 
put the little rollers over which our lines run. So 
before we start we throw dice for these holes, or 
just as likely cast lots with brass numbers in the 
cabin-boy’s cap; and the hole that each one gets, 
he keeps for the whole season. Nobody has any 
right to put his line anywhere else; there’s never 
any change. Well, my post is at the stern of the 
boat, which is the place where the most fish are to 
be caught, as you can understand; and then it’s 
near the shrouds, and you can easily tack on a 
piece of canvas or an oilskin so as to make a 
little shelter for your face against the snow and 
the hail out there, and it’s very useful, I can 
assure you. You don’t get your skin so burned 
during the nasty black squalls; and your eyes see 
clearly ever so much longer.” 

They spoke low to each other, very low, as if 
afraid of frightening away the last moments which 
were left to them, or of making the time fly 
faster. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


229 


Their conversation had that peculiar character 
which everything has which must soon be ended; 
and the smallest and most insignificant things 
they said seemed on that day to have a myste¬ 
rious and momentous significance. 

At the last moment Yann took his wife up in 
his arms, and they clasped each other mutely 
in a long embrace. Then he went aboard • and 
the gray sails were spread out to catch the light 
breeze which was blowing up from the west. She 
could recognize him still; and he waved his cap 
to her, as they had arranged. And long she 
looked upon her Yann as, like a shadow on the 
sea, he vanished in the distance. It was still he, 
that little human figure standing up black against 
the gray-blue waters, already indistinct, and finally 
lost in the distance, where the eyes which still 
looked could see no more. 

And as the “ Leopoldine ” gradually drew away, 
Gaud, drawn on as by a magnet, followed on 
foot along the cliffs. She would soon have to 
stop, because she had come to the end of the 
promontory; so she sat down at the foot of the 
last great cross which stood there among the rocks 
and furze. As it was at a high point in the cliffs, 
the sea seemed to rise in the distance ; and it 
looked as if the “ Leopoldine,” as she retreated, 
rose, little by little, growing ever smaller along 
the slope of the mighty circle. The waves rolled 
up in great slow undulations, the last remnant of 
some mighty storm which had wreaked its fury 


230 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

elsewhere beyond the horizon; but in the wide 
field of view where she still could discern Yann’s 
ship all was calm and quiet. 

Gaud still gazed on, trying to fix in her mem¬ 
ory the look of the ship, the shape of its sails 
and hull, so that she could recognize it from afar 
when she should come to this same place again 
to wait for it to reappear. 

Great rolling waves continued to come in from 
the west regularly one after the other, ceaselessly 
and relentlessly, still renewing their futile striving, 
and breaking over the same rocks, spreading out 
over the same places in the sandy beach. And 
finally this sullen agitation of the sea came to 
have a strange look, contrasted with the mild 
serenity of air and sky. It seemed as if the 
depths of the ocean were overflowing and trying 
to overrun and invade the land. 

But the “ Leopoldine ” grew smaller and smaller 
as she sank out of sight. She was undoubtedly 
being carried along by some current, for the wind 
was very light that evening; and still she was 
rapidly getting farther and farther away. She 
had become now nothing but a little gray spot, 
hardly more than a point; she would soon reach 
the extreme edge of the visible world and cross 
over into that infinite beyond, over which the 
darkness was already beginning to gather. 

By seven o ’clock in the evening night had 
come, the ship had disappeared; and Gaud went 
home, courageous enough on the whole, in spite 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


231 


of the tears which would come. But what a dif¬ 
ference there was now, and how much greater 
emptiness would he have left behind, if he had 
gone away as he had done the two years be¬ 
fore, without even bidding her good-by! Now 
that everything was changed, and the pain so 
mitigated, since he was really her own, she 
felt herself so surrounded by his love, in spite of 
his departure, that as she went home alone she 
was almost consoled by the delicious anticipation 
of their meeting again in the autumn. 


CHAPTER III. 

The summer went by, warm, quiet, and sad, 
the first yellow leaves, the gathering of the swal¬ 
lows, the first chrysanthemums bringing joy to 
her heart. 

By the packet boats to Reikiavik, and by the 
messenger boats, she sent him several letters; 
but she never could be sure that they reached 
him. 

At the end of July she received a letter from 
him telling her that he was in good health on the 
10th of that month, that the season’s fishing prom¬ 
ised to be excellent, and that he already had 
fifteen hundred fish as his share. From one end 
to the other it was written in that innocently con- 



232 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

ventional style of all the letters Icelanders write 
to their families. Men brought up like Yann 
are completely ignorant of how to express the 
thousand little things which they think and feel 
and desire. But as she was more educated than 
he, she could do that partly for herself, and could 
read between the lines the deep tenderness which 
he had not expressed. Several times in the 
course of the letter he called her “wife,” as 
if he took pleasure in repeating the name; and 
then the address alone, “ A Madame Marguerite 
Gaos, Maison Moan en Ploubazlanec,” was in 
itself a thing to be read and re-read with joy. 
She had had so little time in which to be called 
Madame Marguerite Gaos. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Gaud worked very hard during these summer 
months. The women of Paimpol, who were 
doubtful at first of her capacity for work, saying 
that her hands were too pretty and too like a 
young lady’s, had discovered that on the con¬ 
trary she could make their figures look better 
than any one else could, and she had almost 
become a fashionable dressmaker. 

What she earned went to beautify the cottage 
for his return. The wardrobe and the old cup- 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 233 

board-beds were mended and varnished and 
fitted with bright new locks. She had put new 
glass into the dormer-window which looked out 
on the sea, and had hung curtains before it, and 
bought a new coverlet for the winter, a table, and 
some chairs. 

All this she had done without touching the 
money which Yann had left her when he went 
away, and which she was keeping intact in a little 
Chinese box to show him when he returned. 

During the summer evenings while the light 
lasted she would sit before the door with Grand¬ 
mother Yvonne, whose head was much clearer 
during the warm weather, knitting a beautiful 
fisherman’s jersey in blue wool for Yann. There 
were borders on the cuffs and collar in wonder¬ 
fully complicated open stitches. Grandmother 
Yvonne, who had been famous for knitting in 
her day, had, little by little, remembered how she 
used to do the various stitches in her youth, in 
order to teach them to Gaud; and it was a 
piece of work which took a great deal of wool, 
for Yann needed a very big jersey. 

But soon, particularly toward evening, they 
began to feel that the days were growing shorter. 
Certain plants which had finished blooming in 
July began to look yellow already, and small pale 
violets on long stems started up again by the 
roadside ; finally the last days of August arrived, 
and one evening, off the point of Pors-Even, the 
first Iceland boat hove in sight. 


234 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


Everybody rushed to the cliff to welcome it. 
Which one was it? 

“ It’s the ‘Samuel Az 6 nide,’— it’s always 
ahead ! ” 

“The ‘ Leopoldine ’ won’t be far behind, that’s 
sure,” said Yann’s old father. “ I know how it 
is out there; when one starts, the others can’t 
stay behind.” 


CHAPTER V. 

The Icelanders were all coming back. Two 
came in on the second day, four the day after 
that, and then twelve within the next week. And 
happiness returned with them throughout the land ; 
and it was holiday for the wives and mothers, 
holiday also in the wine-shops where the pretty 
Paimpol girls were waiting on the fishermen while 
they drank. 

The “ Leopoldine ” was among the tardy ones; 
there were still ten which had not arrived. She 
could not delay much longer; and Gaud was in 
a state of delicious excitement at the idea that at 
the end of the week which she had given herself, 
so as not to be disappointed, Yann would be 
there. She kept the house in wonderful order, 
and everything very clean and neat, ready to re¬ 
ceive him. When everything was arranged, there 
was nothing more to do; and besides, she had 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


235 

not much thought left for important things, in her 
impatience. 

Three of the tardy boats came into port, and 
then five more. There were only two now that 
were wanting. 

“ So,” they laughed, “ this year it’s either the 
‘Leopoldine’ or the ‘ Marie Jeanne’ who will 
bring up the rear.” 

And Gaud began to laugh too, excited and 
prettier than ever in her expectant joy. 


CHAPTER VI. 

But the days went on. 

Gaud continued to dress herself carefully, to 
put on a gay and careless air, and go to the quay 
to talk with the others. 

She kept saying that it was perfectly natural, — 
the delay. Was it not what happened every 
year? And then such good sailors ! and two 
such good boats ! 

But in the evening, when she had gotten home 
again, she began to feel just a little worried and 
anxious. Could it be possible that she was afraid 
so soon? Was there any reason for it? And 
then she grew frightened because she had been 
afraid. 



236 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


CHAPTER VII. 

The 10th of September, — how the days flew 
by ! 

One morning, when there was already a cold 
mist over the ground, — a real autumn morning, 
— the rising sun found her seated in the porch of 
the chapel for shipwrecked sailors, in the place 
where the widows came to say their prayers, 
seated motionless, with eyes fixed and temples 
bound as with a band of iron. 

For two days past the melancholy morning 
mists had begun to rise; and on this morning 
Gaud awoke with a sharper anxiety, on account 
of the feeling of winter in the air. What was 
there about this day, this hour, this minute, dif¬ 
ferent from the preceding ones? Sometimes 
boats are a whole fortnight late, sometimes even 
a month. 

But there was something peculiar about this 
morning, surely, since for the first time she had 
come to sit in the porch of this chapel, and to 
re-read the names of these dead sailors. 

In memory of 
Gaos, Moan, 

lost at sea, near the northern fiord — 

A great shuddering blast came roaring up from 
the sea, and at the same time something fell 
on the roof like rain, — dead leaves. A whole 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


237 


shower of them blew into the porch. The old 
trees, shaken by the ocean wind, were shedding 
their foliage. Winter was coming — 

Lost at sea, 

near the northern fiord, 
in the tempest of the 4 and 5 of Aug., 1880. 

She read it mechanically, while through the grat¬ 
ing of the door her eyes searched the ocean’s 
distances. This morning it seemed vague and 
indistinct under the gray mist, and a heavy bank 
of fog hung over the horizon like a mourning veil. 

Another blast, and more dead leaves came flut¬ 
tering in, — a stronger gust this time, as if the 
west wind, which had already scattered the bodies 
of these men over the sea, wished to disturb even 
these inscriptions, which recalled their names to 
those who were yet alive. 

In spite of herself, Gaud’s eyes were again 
and again drawn to an empty space in the wall, 
which seemed to be waiting to be filled. She 
was pursued with a terrible persistence by the 
thought of a new tablet which might soon have 
to be put there, bearing another name, which 
even in spirit she dared not breathe in such a 
place. 

She shivered as she sat on the granite bench, 
with her head leaning against the stone wall. 

Lost near the northern fiord, 
in the tempest of the 4 and 5 of Aug., 
aged 23 years. 

May he rest in peace ! 


238 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


A vision of Iceland and its little cemetery came 
to her mind, — that distant, distant Iceland, lit 
up at midnight by the low-lying sun. And then 
suddenly, always in that same empty space which 
seemed to be waiting, she saw again with horrible 
distinctness the new tablet of which she had been 
thinking, — a fresh tablet, with a skull and cross- 
bones, and in the middle, as if written in letters 
of fire, a name, that adored name, Yann Gaos ! 
And then she stood up, and uttered a hoarse cry 
like one insane. 

Outside, the gray mist of morning still lingered 
over the land, and the dead leaves still blew flut¬ 
tering in. 

Steps along the path. Who could be coming ? 
She stood up very straight, and with a quick 
movement arranged her cap, and tried to com¬ 
pose her face. The steps were getting nearer; 
some one was coming in. And she quickly as¬ 
sumed the manner of one who had also come 
there by chance, — not willing yet, for anything 
in the world, to seem like the wife of a ship¬ 
wrecked sailor. 

But it was Fante Floury, the wife of the “ Leo- 
poldine’s ” second mate, and she understood im¬ 
mediately what Gaud was doing there; it was 
needless to try to deceive her. First the two 
women stood silently facing each other, their 
terror intensified at having met in this way, almost 
hating each other for being there. And then, 
“All those of Treguier and Saint Brieuc have 




AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


2 39 


been back for a week,” Fante finally said piti¬ 
lessly, in a sullen voice, as if annoyed; she was 
bringing a taper to make a vow. 

Oh, yes, a vow ! Gaud had preferred not to 
think about this last resort of the unfortunate. 
But she went into the chapel behind Fante with¬ 
out speaking; and they knelt down together like 
two sisters. And there they repeated the prayers 
to the “ Virgin, Star of the Sea ” with all their 
souls. And soon there was nothing to be heard 
but the sound of their sobbing, and their tears 
began to rain down upon the ground. 

They arose calmer and more confident. Fante 
helped the trembling Gaud to rise, and put her 
arms about her and kissed her. 

And then, having dried their tears, arranged 
their hair, brushed the saltpetre and the dust of 
the stones from their skirts where they had knelt, 
they went on their different ways without another 
word. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

The end of September this year was like a 
second summer except for the sadness which was 
in the air. It was really such beautiful weather 
that if it had not been for the dead leaves which 
fell mournfully in showers by the roadside, it 
would have seemed like the merry month of June. 



240 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

Husbands, lovers, and sweethearts had come back, 
and everywhere was the joy of a second springtide 
of love. 

Finally, one day, one of the two boats which 
were over-due was signalled off the coast. But 
which ? 

Groups of women quickly gathered on the cliff 
in mute anxiety. 

Gaud was there, pale and trembling, beside her 
Yann’s father. 

“ I really believe,” said the old fisherman, “ I 
believe it’s they ! — a red pennant and a balloon 
topsail; it looks wonderfully like them. What do 
you say, Gaud, my girl? 

“ And yet, no,” he said with sudden disappoint¬ 
ment, — “ no, we are deceived again ; the bowsprit 
is not like theirs, and they have a flying jib. So 
it’s not they this time, it’s the ‘ Marie Jeanne ; ’ 
but they can’t be long now, my dear.” 

And day followed day, and every night came 
in its due time, with inexorable monotony. 

Gaud was almost foolishly particular about her 
dress, for fear of looking like the wife of a lost 
sailor, and was angry when the others spoke to 
her with half-expressed compassion, turning away 
her eyes so as not to meet the pitying looks which 
made her heart stand still. 

She had taken lately to going every morning to 
the high cliff of Pors-Even, at the very end of the 
coast, passing behind the house of Yann’s father 
so that his mother and little sisters should not see 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


241 


her. She would go all alone to this last extreme 
point in the country of Ploubazlanec, where the 
cliff cuts into the gray waters of the Channel like 
the horn of a reindeer, and would sit there the 
whole day long at the foot of the lonely cross, 
which overlooks the mighty expanse of waters. 
There are many such granite crosses standing out 
on the bold jutting cliffs of this sea-shore, as if 
asking for pity from this restless mysterious thing 
which draws men to her and never gives them 
back, keeping by preference the best and bravest 
for herself. 

About this cross of Pors-Even, the fields were 
ever green with their carpet of short green furze; 
and at this height, the sea-air was very pure, 
with scarce a trace of the salt smell of sea¬ 
weed, but filled with the delicious fragrance of 
September. 

All the irregularities of the coast could be seen 
from this point, jutting out one after the other in 
the distance. The shore in this land of Brittany 
ends off in rugged points which stretch far out 
into the tranquil emptiness of the waters. Just at 
the edge the mirror of the sea crumbles on the 
rocks, but beyond, nothing disturbs its polished 
surface, and a gentle caressing sound, low but all- 
pervading, comes up from the foot of all the cliffs. 
And how calm were these wide waters, how lucid 
these mighty depths ! The great blue waste, the 
tomb of the ill-fated Gaoses, guarded ever its im¬ 
penetrable mystery, while the breezes, as feeble as 
16 


242 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

a sigh, scattered abroad the odor of the low 
heather, which bloomed again in this last autumn 
sunshine. 

When the tide went out, deep and ever-widen¬ 
ing spots were left along the shore, as if the waters 
of the Channel were slowly vanishing; and then 
with the same slow movement the waters rose 
again, and continued their endless washing to and 
frp without a thought of the silent dead below. 

And Gaud remained there, seated at the foot of 
the cross, in the midst of the deep stillness, until 
the night came and she could see no more. 


CHAPTER IX. 

The end of September had come. She no 
longer ate; she no longer slept. 

And now she remained at home, bent over, 
with her hands between her knees, her head lean¬ 
ing against the granite wall. Why should she 
get up ? Why should she go to bed ? She threw 
herself on her bed without undressing, when she 
was too exhausted to sit up longer. Otherwise 
she remained there perfectly still, and almost 
stupefied, her teeth chattering as if with cold, and 
with this feeling as of a band of iron about her 
temples. Her face was drawn, and her mouth 
was dry and feverish; and sometimes she uttered 



AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


243 


a hoarse groan in her throat, over and over for 
hours together, while she beat her head against 
the granite wall. 

And then she would call Yann by his name with 
words of love, — very tenderly in a low voice, as 
if he were quite near to her; and it sometimes 
happened that she would think of other things, 
little insignificant things, amusing herself, for 
instance, in watching the shadows of the china 
Virgin and the holy-water basin gradually length¬ 
ening, as the light declined, along the high wood¬ 
work of her bed. And then her agony would 
return to her more horrible than ever, and she 
would begin that cry again, and beat her head 
against the wall. 

And all the hours of the day went by, one 
after the other, and all the hours of the night and 
all those of the morning. When she counted up 
how long a time had gone by since he ought to 
have been back, she was seized with an un¬ 
endurable terror; and she no longer wished to 
know the dates or the names of the days as 
they passed. 

There are usually some signs of shipwrecks in 
Iceland ; those who return have seen the tragedy 
from afar, or have probably found some pieces 
of the wreck, or a floating body, — some indica¬ 
tion which tells the story. But, no ! no one had 
seen or heard anything of the “ Leopoldine.” The 
crew of the “ Marie Jeanne,” who were the last 
who had seen her, on the 2d of August, said that 


244 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


she was then going to fish farther up toward the 
north; and after this all was lost in impene¬ 
trable mystery. 

To wait, always to wait, without ever knowing 
anything ! When would the moment come when 
she would really wait no more? She did not 
know even that, and now she almost wished that 
she soon might — 

Oh, if he were dead, why, at least was not 
some one pitiful enough to tell her so? Oh, to 
see him — wherever he was at this moment — 
to see him, or what remained of him ! If only 
the Virgin to whom she had prayed so long 
would grant her by a sort of second sight a vision 
of him, of her Yann ! — of him alive, sailing his 
boat toward home, or at least his body tossed 
by the sea! 

Sometimes the vision of a sail rising on the 
horizon would suddenly come to her, — the 
“ Leopoldine ” approaching, hastening to get in ! 
And then she would make an unconscious move¬ 
ment to get up, to run out, to look over the 
ocean to see if it were true. But she would fall 
back in her seat again. Alas ! where was she 
at this moment, — the “ Leopoldine, ” — where 
was she likely to be? 

Off there, doubtless, in that terribly distant 
Iceland, deserted and wrecked and lost. And 
it always ended with another vision, the same 
which ever relentlessly pursued her, — a disman¬ 
tled and empty wreck, cradled on a silent sea of 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


245 


rosy gray, cradled gently, silently, tenderly, as if 
in mockery, in the still solitude of those lifeless 
waters. 


CHAPTER X. 

Two o’clock in the morning. It was at night 
particularly that Gaud listened to every approach¬ 
ing step. At the least murmur, at the slightest 
unaccustomed sound, her temples throbbed; and 
her nerves had so long been overstrained that 
the least noise was agony to her. 

Two o’clock in the morning. On this night, 
as on all the others, she was lying with her hands 
clasped and eyes open in the darkness, listening 
to the sound of the wind sighing its ceaseless 
complaint along the shore. Suddenly a man’s 
steps ! — steps hastening along the road. At such 
an hour who could be passing? She raised her¬ 
self in bed, stirred to the depths of her soul, 
while her heart ceased its beating. 

Some one stopped before the door, and was 
mounting the little stone steps. 

He — oh, joy of heaven ! — he ! Some one 
had knocked ; it could be no one else. She was 
out of bed in her bare feet; she, so feeble for 
so many days, jumped out as nimbly as a cat, 
with arms outstretched to embrace her beloved. 
Doubtless the “ Leopoldine ” had arrived in the 



246 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 

night, and had anchored off the bay of Pors-Even, 
and he was rushing to come to her. She arranged 
all this in her head with the rapidity of lightning, 
and now she was breaking her nails on the fas¬ 
tening of the door, in her mad haste to slide back 
the rusty bolt. 

Ah ! — and then she slowly recoiled, sinking 
down with her head fallen on her breast. Her 
beautiful, foolish dream was over. It was only 
Fantic, their neighbor. By the time she well 
understood that it was not he, that no sign of 
her Yann had passed by in the night, she had 
fallen again by degrees into the same gulf, — to 
the same depths of awful despair. Poor Fantic 
apologized. His wife, as she knew, was at her 
very worst at present, and their child was chok¬ 
ing in its cradle with the croup ; and he had 
come to ask for help while he ran to Paimpol 
for a doctor. 

What difference did all that make to her? 
She had become almost savage in her grief, and 
had no longer any thought for the troubles of 
others. Sunk on a bench before him, with her 
eyes fixed as if she were dead, she neither spoke, 
nor listened, nor looked at him. What did it 
matter to her what the man was saying? 

And then he understood why she had opened 
the door so quickly for him, was sorry for the 
pain he had caused her, and began to stammer 
out an apology. True, he ought not to have dis¬ 
turbed her, — not her. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


247 

“ Not me?” replied Gaud, quickly; “and 
why not me, Fantic?” 

Life suddenly returned to her with the fear of 
being thought by others to despair. She would 
not endure that yet. And then, in her turn, she 
was sorry for him; so she dressed herself and 
followed him, finding strength enough to go and 
take care of his little child. 

When she came back, to throw herself on her 
bed at four o’clock, she fell asleep for a moment, 
because she was tired out. 

But this one instant of great joy had left an 
impression on her mind which still remained 
in spite of everything. She awoke soon with a 
shock, half rising out of her bed, at the remem¬ 
brance of something. There had been some 
news about her Yann; and in the confusion of 
ideas which came into her head, she tried quickly 
to recall what it was. 

Ah, nothing, alas! — no, nothing but Fantic; 
and a second time she fell into the depths of 
her old despair. No; in reality nothing had 
happened to change her dull and hopeless wait¬ 
ing. But to have thought that he was so near, — 
it was as if some message from his spirit had 
come to float in the air about her. It seemed 
like what they called in Brittany a “ warning; ” 
and she listened more carefully still to all the 
steps outside, believing that somebody would 
come who would speak of him. 


248 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

And in fact, when it was daylight, Yann’s father 
did come to see her. He took off his cap, 
brushed back his beautiful white hair, which was 
curly like his son’s, and sat down by Gaud’s bed. 
His heart was torn with anguish too, for his Yann, 
his handsome Yann, was his eldest, his favorite, 
and his pride. But he did not despair, — no, really 
he did not yet despair; and he began to reassure 
Gaud in a very tender way. In the first place, 
those who had last come back from Iceland all 
told of very heavy fogs which might easily have 
delayed the ship, and then, besides, he had had 
an idea they might very possibly have stopped 
at the Feroe Islands, which lie far northward on 
the route, and whence letters are very long in 
coming. The same thing had happened to him 
forty years ago, and his poor dead mother had 
already had Mass read for his soul. Such a good 
ship she was, — the “ Leopoldine,” — almost new, 
and with such a good crew on board ! 

Old Mother Moan prowled about them, shak¬ 
ing her head. Her grandchild’s trouble had 
almost given her back her strength and her men¬ 
tal faculties. And she took care of the house, 
looking from time to time, as she went about, at 
the yellowing little photograph of her Sylvestre, 
hanging on the granite wall, with its anchors and 
its mourning wreath of black pearls ; but since this 
seafaring life had deprived her of her last grand¬ 
son, she no longer had any faith in the return of 
any sailor. She only prayed to the Virgin now 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 249 

from fear, with her poor old lips only, guarding 
an unforgetting bitterness ever in her heart. 

But Gaud listened eagerly to all these consol¬ 
ing words, her great eyes with their black circles 
regarding with deep tenderness this old man who 
looked so like her love. Only to have him there 
next to her seemed like a protection against 
death, and she felt more hopeful, and as if Yann 
were nearer to her; and as her tears fell silently 
and with greater calmness, she began to say over 
again to herself her ardent prayers to the “ Virgin, 
Star of the Sea.” 

They had stopped off there in those islands, 
to repair damages perhaps; it was indeed quite 
possible. 

Gaud got up, braided her hair, and made a kind 
of toilet, as if he really might be coming back. 
Surely, all hope was not lost, since he, his father, 
did not despair; and for several days she began 
to look for Yann again. 

It was full autumn, late autumn; and there 
were sombre twilights, when it soon grew dark in 
the old cottage, and dark also all about in the old 
Breton country. The days themselves seemed 
scarcely more than twilights, and the clouds which 
floated slowly by often made it quite dark at 
noon-day. 

The wind roared ceaselessly, like the distant 
sound of great church organs playing ominous 
or despairing tunes, or at other times rushed up 
against the door, raging like a wild beast. 


250 AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 

Gaud had become pale, so pale, looking all 
the time more weak and worn, as if age had al¬ 
ready brushed her with its plumeless wing. Very 
often she would look over Yann’s things, — his 
beautiful wedding clothes, — folding them and un¬ 
folding them like a mad-woman, and particularly 
one of his blue woollen jerseys which still kept 
the shape of his body. When she threw it gently 
on the table, it fell naturally into the contour of 
his shoulders and chest. And finally she put it 
alone in a drawer in the wardrobe, not wishing to 
stir it again, for fear of its losing that impression 
the sooner, if disturbed. 

Every evening cold fogs drove up across the 
shore; and she looked out of her window over 
the melancholy country, watching the little puffs 
of white smoke beginning to rise here and there 
from the cottages of the neighbors. There every¬ 
where the men had returned like wandering birds 
brought back by the cold; and before many a 
hearth-fire pleasant evenings would be spent, for 
the revival of love had come again with winter 
throughout all this country of the Icelanders. 

Clutching at the thought of those islands where 
he might be stopping, she began, as it were, to 
hope again, and once more to expect him. 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN . 


251 


CHAPTER XI. 

Yann never came back. 

One August night out there off the coast of 
sombre Iceland, in the midst of a great fury of 
sound had been celebrated his marriage with the 
sea, — with the sea which had formerly been his 
nurse. It was she who had cradled him, who 
had made him a strong and broad-chested youth, 
and had then taken him in his magnificent man¬ 
hood for herself alone. A profound mystery had 
enveloped these monstrous nuptials. Dark veils 
were shaken constantly above them, curtains mov¬ 
ing and twisted, stretched there to hide the feast; 
and the bride had given voice, making all the 
time her most horrible loud noise to drown the 
cries. 

And he, remembering Gaud, his wife of flesh, 
had defended himself, struggling like a giant, 
against this spouse, which was the tomb, until 
the moment when he gave himself up, his arms 
open to receive her, with a great deep cry like 
the death-roar of a bull, his mouth already filled 
with water, his arms open, outstretched and stiff 
forever. 


2 5 2 


AN ICELAND FISHERMAN. 


And they were all there at the wedding, all 
those whom Yann had before invited, — all ex¬ 
cept Sylvestre, who had gone off to sleep in en¬ 
chanted gardens far away, on the other side of 
the world. 


THE END. 


LbWy3Q 
































































































